Capital Commentary: Why Should Christians Care About Public Education?

Capital Commentary: Why Should Christians Care About Public Education? by Ted Williams, III.  MGB: There are several things we can do as a Christian community and as individual Christians to help the public schools.  One basic thing is to make sure any movement to school choice also includes a demand for increased public revenue for eduction, so that taxes go up at least as much as the tuition that would no longer have to be paid if the schools were still private, if not more to handle the further strains on the system.  We also need to not make it be about breaking the power of teachers unions or as a back door way to keep out or marginalize minority students.  This is true for Evangelical, Protestant and Catholic Schools.  We also need to share why private Christian and Catholic schools are better. 

A main reason is that there is less standardization and more parental control.  Individual schools are not dependent on system statistics or standards.  There are no "No Child Left Behind" goals for them to meet or teach to.  They can simply teach and be responsible to the parents of the children they serve.  Without standards, there is little need for central office administration to develop either curricula or teacher enrichment and certification.  Private schools are also freer and most likely wiser in dealing with discipline issues.  No one is suspended from private school for taking an asprin. 

Finally, as far as how the U.S. ranks in the OECD, the correct measure is to compare various states to other OECD members, at least the European ones.  The US as a whole can be compared to the EU as a whole or China as a whole.  If you want to compare Ireland and Finland, the correct units of measure are Iowa and Mississippi (two state systems who could not be more different in terms of population, funding or teacher quality).

North Korea: Clear Evil, No Clear Solutions | Capital Commentary

North Korea: Clear Evil, No Clear Solutions | Capital Commentary by Judd Birdsail.  MB: The author was interviewed on BookTV a few months ago.  His story is chilling and shows how the entire society has been affected by the Kim dictatorship.  A society cannot be freed from the outside, however, as we are finding in Egypt.  People must free themselves.  Until they realize this, we really can't help them.  The spell must be broken from within - although we came close to doing so in post-war Germany, but at the cost of total war.

Science in Political Discourse | Capital Commentary

Science in Political Discourse | Capital Commentary by Jason E. Summers.  MB: While some scientists are become more fluent in the sociology of science, others are are too humble in branching out into metaphysics when dealing with ethical issues, such as when human life begins.  While science certainly cannot define it through the scientific method, it offers profound clues to a response and it is false humility to not broadcast that fact. (for those interested, Gastrulation seems to be the best marker for the begining of life, when regulative development begins under the DNA of  both parents - where prior to that only maternal DNA controls the growth of the blastocyst).  Whatever life energy that starts there is what continues until death.  Neuroscience has demonstrated that consciousness is not the seat of the soul, but a reflection of what happens in the brain earlier.  If there is a soul, it is in the energy of thought, not the perception of it, which means that one need not be capable of consciousness to be considered as having posession of a soul.

Two Half Answers to Poverty | Capital Commentary

Two Half Answers to Poverty | Capital Commentary by Steve Momsa.  MGB: My platform in Americans Elect actually dealt with poverty intelligently by paying people to become literate and give them the same tax advantages I would give workers and the same health care the training provider gets.  Current poverty numbers are badly estimated because they exclude government support - but even then, more people are truly poor than the current metrics show.  Also, government programs could be much better.  For the record, liberals do not like requirements that deny benefits to intact families,time- limit eligibility (which encourages abortion) and are designed to steer people into low wage work rather than real careers.  Indeed, a look at training grant programs by HHS shows a bias toward nurses aid training, which is dirty work on the best day.  The idea that we are sending a primarilty minority population toward such bodily care to rich old white people is telling on the extent that race is still an essential element in American politics.

The True Genius of the U.S. Constitution | Capital Commentary

The True Genius of the U.S. Constitution | Capital Commentary by David Koyzis.  MB: The true genius of the Constitution is also wrapped up in an enlightened elite, although that enlightenment is certainly not universal by any means - and certainly wasn't during segregation.  The Bill of Rights does not poll well among the citizens, however it does a fairly good job among modern elites, particularly graduates of major law schools.  Sadly, some think that such education is not a virtue.  They could not be more wrong.  Indeed, at one point, graduates of a set of substandard law schools were prized by one party because of their orthodoxy over their ability - and this has damaged their movement beyond measure in todays debates about marriage equality and contraception.  This has happened on occassion to the left, but not to the extent it now affects conservatism.

From Principle to Policy: Navigating the Moral Terrain of Immigration Reform | Capital Commentary

From Principle to Policy: Navigating the Moral Terrain of Immigration Reform | Capital Commentary by Paul Brink.  MGB: It is troubling that the rhetoric on this issue is less than Christian, however that is the case with most discourse nowadays. It would be good to enter into a debate that humanizes immigrants, where enforcement resources, including local ones, were dedicated to finding the victims of human trafficking and directing them to federal help, including special visas for such victims, rather than simply trying to deport as many as possible. I fear that instead local law enforcement calludes with traffickers by looking the other way when economic interests are served by cheap labor and only enforcing the law when workers begin to make trouble by demanding their rights to fair wages and decent working conditions.


The problem is not our borders. People have a right to enter, they just don't have a right to stay. If right-to-work and immigration laws were repealed, there would be no jobs for workers in the shadows, so people would not overstay their welcomes in a manner that disrupts the domestic workforce. Given the choice between hiring a unionized immigrant and a unionized citizen, most employers would likely prefer the citizen. This will force home countries to deal with their own problems rather than send them here. Unnatural immigration limits are not needed - and are in fact dehumanizing because they turn people into numbers and create a shadow workforce.

Border law cannot be a state responsibility. Enforcement is only necessary because illegality pays, making this largely a problem between Republican business owners who are honest and want more legal workers, those who benefit from illegality and those who are truly xenophobic - although the second group stokes the passions of the third to keep their profit margins low. Eventually, the immigrants will find a home in the Democratic Party and no one will care about GOP intercene warfare. This will allow adequate funding of immigration services, eliminating the backlogs that help keep people in the shadows. My German ancestors came, signed papers and became Americans. There is no reason that Latino immigrants need any more process than that.

An Economy Built on Affection | Capital Commentary

An Economy Built on Affection | Capital Commentary by Emily Belz.  Wendell Berry shows that austerity and community cannot coexist in the public space.  Bravo!

Reforming Public Pensions for the Common Good | Capital Commentary

Reforming Public Pensions for the Common Good | Capital Commentary by Michael Gerson.  Pension reform shojld mean limiting abuses, not turning employee futures over to defined contribution plans which benefit fund managers more than employees and retirees.  The defined contribution movement has largely been a mistake and can only be justified if employers pay the administrative costs of these plans rather than plan income.  That is true for both public and private plans - and is an argument for more employee-ownership shares in these plans (up to two-thirds) and privatization of public services so that they can be employee-owned whereever possible.  Such firms, however, should democraticly managed rather than heirarchical, so that this does not simply become a dodge to reward elites at the expense of employees (since whomever makes the rules generally gets the gold).

“I didn’t know that!” – How Health Care Reform is Beginning to Control Costs | Capital Commentary

“I didn’t know that!” – How Health Care Reform is Beginning to Control Costs | Capital Commentary by Clarke Cochrane.  MGB: Interestingly, Dr. Cochrane's brother teaches at my Alma Mater, Loras College, in the field where I graduated. 

On a more sour note, it is not certain that mandates and cost cutting are adequate to keep private insurance in business once reform is fully implemented.  If too many people elect to take the penalty rather than the policy, the whole system could collapse and be replaced with either a subsidized public option or full on single payer (or at least single payer catastrophic).  Still, the $250,000 figure cited reflects the cost of care in the last year of life.  Shifting payments to retirees may result in de facto death panels or simply people not getting the treatment that might just continue their life or at least make passing easier. 

One wonders what "payment for results" means when the Pater Familius is lying in intensive care in a coma after a heart attack where he was brought back, but not all the way, and later dies - this being the story of my father's passing.  I am sure that this care given today would have been close to $1 million.  Indeed, the reason for the low $250,000 figure is that some get extreme care and others get nothing because they die quickly.  We can certainly save money by not bringing people back (like my father) who had no prognosis of success - the question is, do we want to make that a matter of financial necessisty.  Of course, if modern cryogenic techniques had been used, he might be around today berating me for my support of Obama and the danger he would see that this presents to my soul.

American Exceptionalism—In God’s Eyes | Capital Commentary

American Exceptionalism—In God’s Eyes | Capital Commentary  MGB: American Exceptionalism, in the eyes of culture theory, is the unique confluence of Liberty and Equality.  In much of Europe, rights come from the state rather than from God, so in a very real sense, our exceptionalism is God given.  We are still a work in progress and imperialism, both military and economic, do not fit in well with our founding narrative (not that the founders did not want us to be a great power, they certainly did).  If we are true to our ideals, however, we must abandon world supremacy and stand up for the ideals of liberty and equality that make us different in the first place - shunning those who don't share those views if we must.  Think of what the world would be like if our views on God given liberty and equality were universal to the planet!