Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

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Category: Culture

Student loan repayments restart

by | 0731, 3 Oct 23 | , , , | 6 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

Meanwhile, the second aggravating factor is that demand has risen as high schools across America portray a college education as the only viable path to stave off poverty. Instead of portraying the military, the trades, entrepreneurship, or other career paths as equally viable, too many high school teachers and counselors — all college graduates themselves — have culturalized kids to think that anyone without a college degree is lesser.

 

Compounding the misleading culturalization, the abysmally wretched financial education provided in those high schools leave prospective students ill-equipped to evaluate the risk/reward of financing a college degree with debt. Ignorant of the power of compounding interest, too many kids are borrowing tens of thousands of dollars to get a degree with little market value. The result is that they are unable to get jobs after graduation that pay enough to easily pay off the debt.

 

It is true that some people are not getting the value out of their degrees that they had hoped for or were promised. It is true that college costs more than it should. It is true that student loan payments make it more difficult to afford other things and that everything is more expensive than it used to be. It is true that lenders were all too eager to dole out money without any consideration of the degree being pursued or potential future earnings of the graduate.

 

All of these things are true, but it does not absolve the borrowers from the obligation to pay off their own debt. It is not a financial question. It is a moral one. If you borrowed the money, then you must pay it back. To fail to do so makes you a shameful deadbeat and a drain on your family and community. Having a college degree does not make you any less of a loser if you renege on your obligations.

 

Furthermore, nobody wants to hear you whine about your student loans. In 2022, less than 38% of adults 25 and older had at least a bachelor’s degree. Three in five adults in the United States do not have a college degree and did not sign up to pay off the debt of people who have one. Most adults who do have a college degree have either paid off their student loans, are paying off their own student loans, or never took out a loan in the first place. They did not sign up to subsidize deadbeats who do not want to pay off their student loans.

 

The college and student loan system is terribly broken and has led far too many people into borrowing more money than they can easily afford to buy degrees of marginal value. Honor, respect, and dignity demand that the borrowers pay it back as promised.

Milwaukee’s money pit

by | 1049, 30 Sep 23 | , | 2 Comments

Here is my full column that ran earlier in the week in the Washington County Daily News

Wisconsin’s legislative Republicans have announced a new proposal to fund renovations at American Family Field in an effort to keep the Brewers in Milwaukee for another generation. The plan is a package of $600 million in state, county, and city funding coupled with $100 million from the Brewers. This is the third or fourth such proposal (I have lost count), but all of the proposals make some rather sweeping assumptions that must be challenged before the taxpayers are put on the financial hook for another couple of decades.

 

The first assumption is that having a Major League Baseball team in a particular community is a net benefit to that community. The current funding plan reflects that perceived benefit with proportionally more funding being committed by the entities that stand to benefit the most.

 

The Milwaukee Brewers are a private, for-profit business. They provide entertainment for profit. The Brewers employ local people, attract people from out of state to spend money in Wisconsin, and anchor some economic development. In this respect, they are no different than many other businesses headquartered in the state like a robust manufacturer or technology firm that generates economic benefit — most of which flows into the pockets of business owners and their employees.

 

There is also an intangible benefit to the Brewers being in Wisconsin. A major sports franchise contributes to a community by providing a shared identity and point of pride. It is a unifying force. Measuring this identifiable, but unquantifiable, benefit is difficult. We must acknowledge that there is a significant amount of vanity influencing the debate. Many lawmakers who want the taxpayers to support the Brewers do so because they like supporting the Brewers. They are fans.

 

If we take the first assumption to be true — that the Brewers are a net economic and societal benefit for Milwaukee and Wisconsin — then we must challenge a second assumption. Should the taxpayers subsidize the success of this private business?

 

Politicians are notoriously opaque about deciding when and how taxpayers should fund the success of private enterprises, but it happens all the time.

 

Through tax incremental finance districts, favorable tax incentives, direct subsidies, and other means, taxpayers are constantly supporting private businesses under the auspices of economic development.

 

Such taxpayer support is not necessarily a bad thing, but it should be done with reticence and clear expectations as to the return that the taxpayers might receive for their forced investment in a private enterprise. Too often, politicians are lax in their due diligence and weak in their demands when doling out taxpayer money. Such is the benefit of them spending other people’s money where they can take a victory lap for the spending while never being held accountable if there is no return on the investment.

 

All such investments must be prioritized in the context of all of the other demands on taxpayers. Is fixing AmFam Field more important than funding law enforcement? Road maintenance? Snow removal?

 

Other economic development like technology or manufacturing? Is AmFam Field more important than lowering taxes and reducing the size of government?

 

There is no such thing as a free lunch. In a world of scarce resources, funding AmFam Field means that something else will not make the list.

 

All things considered, having the Brewers in Wisconsin is a net benefit to the state, but it does not rise to the level of justifying hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer support. Moreover, the Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District, which owns and operated AmFam Field, has done a terrible job managing the facility to be self-sustaining.

 

A quick look at the SWPBPD’s 2022 financial statements shows that they are running chronic losses. The only sources of revenue are $905,000 from rent from the Brewers, $300,000 in license plate revenue from the vanity plates, $4,500 in miscellaneous, and they lost $7.1 million in investments. Add on the $10.5 million in expenses and the District lost $16.4 million. This operating loss was on top of the $9.9 million loss in 2021.

 

2022 was a brutal year for everyone’s investments thanks to Bidenomics, so we can forgive the investment loss. The financials, however, beg some questions. Why did the Brewers pay less than $1 million per year to use the facility in 2022? That is less than $12,000 per home game. Why has the SWPBPD not found other ways to bring in revenue for the facility?

 

Why have they not been renting out the facility for other events to generate more revenue? Why is the SWPBPD not getting a cut of the sponsorship and concessions money? There is a lot of money is flowing through that stadium that is not making it to the taxpayers who own it for use in its maintenance.

 

The SWPBPD did a commendable job paying off the stadium debt early, but they have not done anything in twenty years to build a self-supporting revenue structure once the five-county stadium sales tax ended.

 

They are supporting expenses by spending down the nearly $60 million in reserves that was generated by the now defunct stadium tax. It appears that the plan all along was to come back to the public trough to sustain the stadium’s operations and maintenance.

 

Taxpayers are rightfully dubious about spending more hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for a building that has been terribly managed for the benefit of one private business. Lawmakers should look to sell the facility to a private enterprise that can manage it profitably and end the taxpayers’ obligation for its upkeep. Even if the underlying assets are sold for below market value, the end of taxpayer obligations is a net benefit for taxpayers. If lawmakers cannot find a private buyer willing to make the investment, then we must ask again why taxpayers would.

A few notes on this column. First, I screwed up the acronym. The governing board actually goes by SEWPBPD instead of SWPBPD. I’m not sure that’s an improvement, but there it is.

Also, it turns out that the lease that the Brewers have with the SEWPBPD that was negotiated and put in place by lawmakers before the board was constituted prohibits the board from monetizing the stadium. Essentially, the Brewers have exclusive access and get any proceeds from renting it out, concessions, sponsorships, etc. As the lease is written, the Brewers – NOT the taxpayers – get all of the benefits of owning the stadium without having any of the obligations for its upkeep or improvements.

The taxpayers are getting hosed here. Privatize the stadium and get the taxpayers out of bearing the costs of this wealthy, private entertainment business.

Victims of AI

by | 1304, 24 Sep 23 | , , , | 1 Comment

We are going to see more of this.

A sleepy town in southern Spain is in shock after it emerged that AI-generated naked images of young local girls had been circulating on social media without their knowledge.

The pictures were created using photos of the targeted girls fully clothed, many of them taken from their own social media accounts.

 

These were then processed by an application that generates an imagined image of the person without clothes on.

 

So far more than 20 girls, aged between 11 and 17, have come forward as victims of the app’s use in or near Almendralejo, in the south-western province of Badajoz.

 

[…]

 

The suspects in the case are aged between 12 and 14. Spanish law does not specifically cover the generation of images of a sexual nature when it involves adults, although the creation of such material using minors could be deemed child pornography.

Another possible charge would be for breaching privacy laws. In Spain, minors can only face criminal charges from the age of 14 upwards.

Some good questions. Clearly, the girls are victims. But is it child porn if the images are fake? What is the appropriate legal sanction, if any, for taking a public image of someone and manipulating it? If the boys had done this by drawing or painting, is it morally different than using AI to create the images? Is it a crime to draw an imagined image of a naked person – adult or child? Our legal infrastructure in the age of AI is woefully behind. The action is clearly disgusting and morally reprehensible, but how should the law deal with it?

Americans Dread Upcoming Campaign

by | 2150, 21 Sep 23 | , | 2 Comments

See: Owen’s column from earlier this week.

The survey of 1,636 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Sept. 14 to 18, offered respondents seven emotions — three positive, three negative, one neutral — and asked them to select any and all that reflect their attitude toward the 2024 campaign.

 

Dread, the most negative option, topped the list (41%), followed by exhaustion (34%), optimism (25%), depression (21%), indifference (17%), excitement (15%) and delight (5%).

In total, a majority of Americans (56%) chose at least one of the three negative feelings (dread, exhaustion or depression), while less than a third (32%) picked at least one of the three positive feelings (optimism, excitement or delight).

The Fetterman Rule

by | 2007, 17 Sep 23 | , | 0 Comments

The slovenly slide into mediocrity continues.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has quietly gotten rid of the dress code for members of the Senate in what’s seen as a way of appealing to the often casually dressed Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.

 

Fetterman, like Schumer a Democrat, often causes buzz for those following the action on Capitol Hill by showing up in a hooded sweatshirt and shorts, though Republicans like Ted Cruz have also been seen before in sweats.

Universities Enforce Racism and Ideological Conformity by Any Means Necessary

by | 1314, 10 Sep 23 | , , | 0 Comments

The UW System has retained its Equity Enforcement infrastructure despite having funding for it cut. They prioritize it over all other interests. Our kids are getting a worse education than we did.

Diversity statements are a new flashpoint on campus, just as the Supreme Court has driven a stake through race-conscious admissions. Nearly half the large universities in America require that job applicants write such statements, part of the rapid growth in DEI programs. Many University of California departments now require that faculty members seeking promotions and tenure also write such statements.

 

Diversity statements tend to run about a page or so long and ask candidates to describe how they would contribute to campus diversity, often seeking examples of how the faculty member has fostered an inclusive or anti-racist learning environment.

 

To supporters, such statements are both skill assessment and business strategy. Given the ban on race-conscious admissions, and the need to attract applicants from a shrinking pool of potential students, many colleges are looking to create a more welcoming environment.

 

But critics say these statements are thinly veiled attempts at enforcing ideological orthodoxy. Politically savvy applicants, they say, learn to touch on the right ideological buzzwords. And the championing of diversity can overshadow strengths seen as central to academia — not least, professional expertise.

 

[…]

 

Candidates who did not “look outstanding” on diversity, the vice provost at UC Davis instructed his search committees, could not advance, no matter the quality of their academic research. Credentials and experience would be examined in a later round.

 

The championing of diversity at the University of California resulted in many campuses rejecting disproportionate numbers of white and Asian and Asian American applicants. In this way, the battle over diversity statements and faculty hiring carries echoes of the battle over affirmative action in admissions, which opponents said discriminated against Asians.

Teacher’s Union Boss Sends Kids to Private School

by | 0740, 9 Sep 23 | , , | 3 Comments

Ever notice how the people responsible for destroying our quality of life are walling off their own lives from the devastation?

The president of Chicago Teachers Union has sent her eldest son to a private school in the city, it has emerged – a month after she called those who supported school choice ‘fascists’.

 

Stacy Davis Gates, who in 2018 tweeted that private schools were ‘segregation academies’, enrolled her son 14 year-old son Kevin this term in a Catholic school. Her younger two children attend a Chicago public elementary school.

 

When critics accused her of hypocrisy, she said that she was doing the best for her son, because public schools in her neighborhood were poor quality.

Surveillance Society Progresses

by | 2203, 7 Sep 23 | , | 0 Comments

Remember that when they set up camera systems and detection technology for one thing, it can be used for other things too.

With decades of failed attempts at gun reform amid the frequency in mass shootings, some have sought alternative solutions through artificial intelligence.

 

The Ocean City School District in New Jersey, as well as the city’s boardwalk, have implemented new technology developed by ZeroEyes, a company that says it uses AI, paired with human experts, to scan camera feeds for guns.

 

“I don’t think anybody should question or be fearful of an artificial intelligence program that’s going to identify an immediate imminent threat of someone being shot or killed. You can’t put a price tag on saving a life,” Jay Prettyman, the police chief in Ocean City, told ABC News.

A Good Start

by | 1118, 4 Sep 23 | | 0 Comments

I love the power of economics forces. The blistering hot weather combined with a patsy team meant that tickets were quite reasonable to watch my Fightin’ Texas Aggies kick off their season from the comfy seats. It was a good start to the season.

Alabama to Execute Killer by Nitrogen Hypoxia

by | 0925, 27 Aug 23 | , , | 0 Comments

I do think that we overthink these things. If we have decided that execution is still moral and right as a punishment for the worst crimes, then the moral boundary has been crossed. From there, we just need to determine the most effective, least costly, and most humane way to do it. And frankly, the first two considerations are more important than the third.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.

 

The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58. The court filing indicated Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.

 

Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.

 

Alabama authorized nitrogen hypoxia in 2018 amid a shortage of drugs used to carry out lethal injections, but the state has not attempted to use it until now to carry out a death sentence. Oklahoma and Mississippi have also authorized nitrogen hypoxia, but have not used it.

FIDE Requires that Only Women Compete in Women’s Chess

by | 1811, 17 Aug 23 | | 6 Comments

Positive.

GENEVA — The world’s top chess federation has ruled that transgender women cannot compete in its official events for women until its officials make an assessment of gender change.

 

The decision by the Switzerland-based federation FIDE, published on Monday, has drawn criticism from advocacy groups and supporters of transgender rights.

 

FIDE said it and its member federations increasingly have received recognition requests from players who identify as transgender, and that the participation of transgender women would depend on an analysis of individual cases that could take up to two years.

 

“Change of gender is a change that has a significant impact on a player’s status and future eligibility to tournaments, therefore it can only be made if there is a relevant proof of the change provided,” the federation said.

 

“In the event that the gender was changed from a male to a female the player has no right to participate in official FIDE events for women until further FIDE’s decision is made,” it said.

West Bend School District Changes Course on Inappropriate Books

by | 0656, 16 Aug 23 | , , | 0 Comments

Or do they?

Wimmer is recommending that “The 57 Bus” by Dashka Slater be removed as a choice book from the eighth-grade English curriculum at Badger Middle School, and that the use of “The 57 Bus” and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, M.D. in the West Bend High Schools curriculum be suspended until the curriculum committee and school board complete their review of the curriculum guidelines and books on the book club choice lists.

 

“The work of our board and their curriculum and policy committees has yet to be finalized,” said Wimmer in a WBSD release. “The books in question will not be used for book club selections until formally reviewed by the curriculum committee and subsequently the full board.”

 

The two books will remain in the West Bend High School Library “until any further board work or action provides direction for removal,” according to a release from the WBSD.

 

Wimmer said the reason for her recommendation to remove “The 57 Bus” from Badger Middle School was due to the book being duplicative in WBSD curriculum, since it was included in both the eighth grade and junior year English book club choice book lists.

 

“Not even looking at content, not even looking at those kinds of pieces, it’s duplicated,” said Wimmer. “It’s a piece in curriculum that’s dually stated, that was not present in the library at Badger, it’s just not necessary as a book club [book].”

Everyone is dancing around the content and trying to litigate on the secondary or tertiary issues. The stated reason by the superintendent is that it is being removed from part of the curriculum because it’s duplicative. Put another way, they push these social issues SO MUCH that they can tolerate backing off a little in this one instance.

Still… it’s a move in the right direction, I guess.

Wisconsin is shrinking

by | 0735, 15 Aug 23 | , , | 2 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a slice:

We are going to return to a topic that this column broached several weeks ago because policymakers in Madison fail to appreciate the severity of what is to come. Wisconsin is losing population. This is happening in a time of national population growth and the negative consequences will be unavoidable. The time to act is now.

 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States added 1.8 million, or 0.6%, people between 2020 and 2022. Over the same period, Wisconsin lost 3,372 people, or 0.06%, of its population. After counting all of the people who moved out of the state and subtracting all of the people who moved into the state, Wisconsin’s population is declining despite the fact that the nation, as a whole, is gaining population.

 

A deeper look into the data reveals an even more dire situation. In the prime working years between 25 and 59 years old, Wisconsin lost nearly 39,000, or 1.5%, of its people. This is the age group that fills jobs, pays the most taxes, and spends the most on things like houses, vehicles, groceries, and the rest that fuels the consumer economy. Even worse, men are leaving the state at a rate faster than women. Given that on average more men participate in the labor force than women, that means that the decline in the available labor force is more pronounced than the overall number suggests.

 

It gets worse. Coming up behind those working adults, Wisconsin’s population is declining even faster. Between the ages of birth and 19 years old, Wisconsin lost almost 41,000, or 2.8%, of its people. That means that there will be fewer people entering the workforce to replace those exiting.

 

The only age group that is increasing in Wisconsin is at the top of the age groups. Wisconsin gained almost 67,000, or a whopping 4.6%, people above the age of 60. This age group tends to be at the end of their working career and are drawing down their consumption as they enjoy their well-earned silver years.

Climbers Sprint Past Dying Man While Setting Ascent Speed Record

by | 0722, 13 Aug 23 | | 0 Comments

It almost seems like this is a metaphor for my column about why Socialism fails.

A well-known Norwegian mountaineer has denied accusations that her team climbed over an injured guide during a bid to break a world record.

The porter, named as Mohammed Hassan, had fallen off a ledge on Pakistan’s K2 – the world’s second-highest mountain.

 

Video on social media appears to show a group walking by Mr Hassan, who reportedly died a few hours later.

 

But Kristin Harila told the BBC she and her team tried everything to help him in dangerous conditions.

“It’s a tragic accident… here is a father and son and a husband who lost his life that day on K2. I think that’s very, very sad that it ended this way,” she said.

The Norwegian was heading for K2’s summit to secure a world record and become the fastest climber to scale all peaks above 8,000m (26,000ft).

 

[…]

 

“We saw a guy alive, lying in the traverse in the bottleneck. And people were stepping over him on the way to the summit. And there was no rescue mission.,” Mr Steindl told the BBC.

 

“I was really shocked. And I was really sad. I started to cry about the situation that people just passed him and there was no rescue mission

Mr Hassan was being treated by one person “while everyone else” moved towards the summit in a “heated, competitive summit rush”, Mr Flämig told Austria’s Der Standard newspaper.

Theory will only take you so far

by | 0646, 11 Aug 23 | , | 11 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News on Tuesday.

If you have not seen the Christopher Nolan film “Oppenheimer,” you should. It is a visually exquisite, beautiful piece of storytelling with fantastic acting. The movie deals thoughtfully with immense topics like nuclear proliferation, antisemitism, McCarthyism, communism, patriotism, and the horrors of war interlaced with the personal story lines of love, hate, betrayal, vengeance, egotism, mental illness, and the wobbling trajectory of a life of purpose.

 

All good art sparks thoughts and emotions that are often in search of a language to express them. One of the many thoughts that continued to percolate in my brain long after the movie ended was the intersection of theory and practice.

 

Relatively early in the movie, Dr. Oppenheimer moves into his classroom at Berkeley that is next to the classroom of Dr. Ernest Lawrence. Oppenheimer meets Lawrence as the latter is constructing what I presume to be a version of the cyclotron for which Lawrence won the Nobel Prize. In conversation, Lawrence opines to Oppenheimer that, “theory will only take you so far.”

 

This thread returns several times throughout the movie as the scientists are confronted with the limitations of theory in the development of the atomic bomb. In one scene, Oppenheimer and other scientists at Berkeley are excited by the news that physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch had discovered nuclear fission in the experiments of nuclear chemist Otto Hahn. Fission was previously thought to be impossible, but Hahn managed to do it by bombarding uranium with neutrons.

 

In the movie, when Oppenheimer read the news, he reiterated that the feat was impossible and descended on his chalkboard to run the math to prove it again. Oppenheimer stood by his assertion that fission was impossible until Lawrence returned to tell Oppenheimer that they had duplicated the experiment. What was “proven” impossible by theory was proven possible by practice.

 

Is it not so with socialism? In theory, socialism should work. It is an economic system in which scarce resources are allocated by priority of need. The theory is that if everyone contributes according to their ability, and everybody consumes according to their need, then the society as a whole will achieve maximum efficiency and aggregate success, or, at least, aggregate satisfaction.

 

Socialism makes sense in theory, so why does it always fail in practice?

 

Socialism fails because it mistakes the fundamental nature of people. Socialism assumes that people are naturally altruistic and will act in good faith. In reality, altruism beyond one’s own family or community is a modern phenomenon. It has only been in recent decades, when food scarcity has abated (thanks to capitalism), that some people have lifted their eyes beyond their personal needs to care about the broader world. But even now, the vast majority of people are far more concerned about their personal self-interest and will behave accordingly.

 

So it is that in a socialist economy, people do not contribute according to their ability. They contribute as little as they must. And they do not consume according to their need. They consume as much as they can. To combat this, the system must be enforced by an ever more forceful central authority. The flawed, and often evil, humans who gravitate into the center of a socialist system tend to be those who are seeking to consume the most. The inevitable result is cruelty, cronyism, and collapse.

 

To preserve liberty in a political and economic sense is to not allow power to concentrate, because whenever power is concentrated, there will be cruel and corrupt people seeking to use that power for their own benefit. Our national founders fundamentally understood this, which is why they designed our federal government to divide and check power.

 

Every system of government is found along a continuum from complete decentralization of power to complete concentration of power. On one end we find anarchy. On the other end we find communism, monarchy, fascism, and other forms of totalitarianism. Socialism is the younger, more handsome, brother of communism while democracy is the older, less reckless, brother of anarchy. The United States has a republic, which seeks to protect individual liberties from the oppression from the majority (democracy) or the minority (totalitarianism).

 

No system is static. There are too many forces at play for it to be so. The tendency, in both economies and governments, is for power to concentrate. This is so because people of ill intent are pushing it in that direction for their own gain. As power concentrates, the progression accelerates until critical mass is reached, and destructive energy is released.

 

There is a reason why socialism is so often advocated by academics and opposed by those who have lived under socialism. Theory will only take you so far.

Legacy Admissions Come Under Fire

by | 0648, 9 Aug 23 | , | 0 Comments

Meh. I don’t have any problem with preference for legacy families. It’s no different than a store offering a coupon or perks for frequent shoppers.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to ban the consideration of race in college admissions has put pressure on institutions to end another controversial practice: preferences for children of alumni.

 

In Wisconsin, few colleges and universities consider “legacy” status in admissions decisions, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel review. And because most Wisconsin schools accept far more students than they reject, it’s likely many legacy students would have gotten in regardless of their family’s history of attendance.

 

But there’s another way in which legacy can benefit already advantaged students: Some schools offer scholarships specifically for students with a family member who graduated from there. At least 13 Wisconsin institutions do, according to the news organization’s review of 28 school scholarship websites.

Theory will only take you so far

by | 0648, 8 Aug 23 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a taste:

In theory, socialism should work. It is an economic system in which scarce resources are allocated by priority of need. The theory is that if everyone contributes according to their ability, and everybody consumes according to their need, then the society as a whole will achieve maximum efficiency and aggregate success, or, at least, aggregate satisfaction.

 

Socialism makes sense in theory, so why does it always fail in practice?

 

Socialism fails because it mistakes the fundamental nature of people. Socialism assumes that people are naturally altruistic and will act in good faith. In reality, altruism beyond one’s own family or community is a modern phenomenon. It has only been in recent decades, when food scarcity has abated (thanks to capitalism), that some people have lifted their eyes beyond their personal needs to care about the broader world. But even now, the vast majority of people are far more concerned about their personal self-interest and will behave accordingly.

 

So it is that in a socialist economy, people do not contribute according to their ability. They contribute as little as they must. And they do not consume according to their need. They consume as much as they can. To combat this, the system must be enforced by an ever more forceful central authority. The flawed, and often evil, humans who gravitate into the center of a socialist system tend to be those who are seeking to consume the most. The inevitable result is cruelty, cronyism, and collapse.

 

To preserve liberty in a political and economic sense is to not allow power to concentrate, because whenever power is concentrated, there will be cruel and corrupt people seeking to use that power for their own benefit. Our national founders fundamentally understood this, which is why they designed our federal government to divide and check power.

 

Every system of government is found along a continuum from complete decentralization of power to complete concentration of power. On one end we find anarchy. On the other end we find communism, monarchy, fascism, and other forms of totalitarianism. Socialism is the younger, more handsome, brother of communism while democracy is the older, less reckless, brother of anarchy. The United States has a republic, which seeks to protect individual liberties from the oppression from the majority (democracy) or the minority (totalitarianism).

 

No system is static. There are too many forces at play for it to be so. The tendency, in both economies and governments, is for power to concentrate. This is so because people of ill intent are pushing it in that direction for their own gain. As power concentrates, the progression accelerates until critical mass is reached, and destructive energy is released.

 

There is a reason why socialism is so often advocated by academics and opposed by those who have lived under socialism. Theory will only take you so far.

Separate but Equal?

by | 1421, 6 Aug 23 | , | 2 Comments

This is a mess.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday left in place a lower court ruling that invalidated a speeding ticket against a Native American man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, because the city is located within the boundaries of an Indian reservation.

 

The justices rejected an emergency appeal by Tulsa to block the ruling while the legal case continues. The order is the latest consequence of the high court’s landmark 2020 decision that found that much of eastern Oklahoma, including Tulsa, remains an Indian reservation.

 

Justin Hooper, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, was cited for speeding in 2018 by Tulsa police in a part of the city within the historic boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. He paid a $150 fine for the ticket, but filed a lawsuit after the Supreme Court’s ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma. He argued that the city did not have jurisdiction because his offense was committed by a Native American in Indian Country. A municipal court and a federal district court judge both sided with the city, but a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision.

 

There were no noted dissents among the justices Friday, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a short separate opinion, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, in which he said that Tulsa’s appeal raised an important question about whether the city can enforce municipal laws against Native Americans.

I’ve been in Tulsa a couple of times this year for various reasons. It’s a mess. In speaking with friends who live there, the Native Americans are flaunting laws and the police are powerless to prevent it. What is most noticeable are the vehicles that should not be on the road but have Reservation plates. But behind the scenes, it is impacting the dual healthcare systems, neighborhoods, property values, crime, and so much more.

UW Sees Dramatic Drop in “non-underrepresented students”

by | 1648, 4 Aug 23 | , , | 20 Comments

Well, that’s an interesting stat.

UW System data indicates drastic enrollment drops by “non-underrepresented” students. They’re defined as students who are white, international students, or those with family heritage in Asian countries well-represented in the student body—such as China, Korea, and Japan.

 

Enrollment by those students fell around 20%, from almost 160,000 in the fall of 2010 to just under 130,000 in the fall of 2022.

Well, let’s see… over the last decade or more, the UW system has been actively biasing their enrollment criteria to favor underrepresented students while telling your average white or Asian Wisconsin kid that they are not welcome. UW administrators have carved out “safe spaces” for underrepresented students under the premise that they are needed because white and Asian kids as threats. Is it any wonder that when you spend years telling a group of people that they are terrible bigots because of the color of their skin that they might choose to go elsewhere for an education?

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