Tuesday, April 7, 2009

More Sowell

It gets harder and harder for me to make regular posts with school and work. I did work 112 hours this last two weeks. I need to find a format that works for me. Instead of try, rather badly IMO, to write a big commentary, I think I will try a Post a link and write a few sentences about it approach. I will rant and rave on a few things though. I also will try and post some comments that I make to various blogs, I think my 5 min of madness posts are the better ones than my try to think of something for 50 min approach. Anywho on that note...some killer quotes from Professor Sowell, my favorite economist and social commentator.

The famous editorial cartoonist Herblock could write as well as draw. In one of his books, he said something like: "You too can have the soothing feeling of nature's own baby-soft wool being pulled gently over your resting eyes." I think of that every time I see Barack Obama talking.
You ain't kiddin'. The hope and change mantra is slowly going away but there are way too many people still star struck. Maybe now that his budget is passed in the House and Senate, people will realize the kind of deficits Obama will "enjoy" for his term.

Barack Obama seems determined to repeat every disastrous mistake of the 1930s, at home and abroad. He has already repeated Herbert Hoover's policy of raising taxes on high income earners, FDR's policy of trying to micro-manage the economy and Neville Chamberlain's policy of seeking dialogues with hostile nations while downplaying the dangers they represent.
The reason more people don't talk about his....see quote one.
Perhaps the scariest aspect of our times is how many people think in talking points, rather than in terms of real world consequences.
I agree this is the scariest one. People want to think in terms on labels. If your free market and less government intervention, then you must be a "Rethuglican." If you want low taxes on what you earn and want to keep the fruits of your labor, then you must just want to horde and stick it to the poor while trying to keep them down.
It's truly disingenuous argument to say that if your a AGW (man made global warming) skeptic, then you must be bought and paid for by the oil industry or worse they say you must not believe science. Of course the fact that they "have the soothing feeling of nature's own baby-soft wool being pulled gently" pulled over their own eyes by the likes of Al Gore and his fellow Democrats because they see Cap and Trade as a money making venture, never come into question.
What is truly sad is the state of education in this country. Me and my wife have already decided that we are going for private school starting with pre-K. She told me the story of her history teacher telling her that the Holocaust didn't happen, and that she was sent to the dean because she called "BS" on her teacher did it for me. I can see that the current public system is rotten to the core. It only took reading about the Little Rock School District and how it is so ineptly run by the gang of 4, to get me on the path to private school. They are getting way too much money for the shitty job they are doing to our kids. That is a fact.
We have two sides in my view. On one side is the people that really want whats best for the kids. They want more choice in schools. Letting parents decide which schools they want their own kids to go to, that means vouchers for those that can't afford them. That's what DC kids enjoyed until recently. The other side is on the side of teacher and administration unions. They want more money, more money and yes even more money. They say they don't have enough funding and the only way to improve schools, test scores and graduation rates is more and more money. Where has all the previous money gone? No, I'm not talking about TARP. Why are teachers being paid so little and the administration being paid so much for such and inferior product?
This being my blog, I'll tell you what I think. I think it because they want it. They want an inferior product. They are against vouchers, private schools and homeschooling because they want the money those programs get. They pay teachers so much less, so they drive out the good teachers, keep the shitty ones and then use that to say they need more funding. Like the Leviathan, they will never be satiated. They want all the money.

Liberals seem to think that they are doing lagging groups a favor by making excuses for counterproductive and self-destructive behavior. The poor do not need press agents. They need the truth. No one ever said, "Press agents will make you free."
Thank the Gods for people like Sowell.

1 comment:

  1. On education: I worked as teacher, currently work as teacher/"coach of teachers" so I am familiar w/ the profession.
    I hate the comparison of the U.S's tax dollars per student to say, China' or Japan's because the comparisons do not take into account the diversity of needs, laws and the demands that stakeholders put on the education system.
    I know we need more $$$-I see it daily. Nothing glamorous is taking place in the schools. I work in a wealthier state as far as teacher pay/school funding is concerned, and we still have a lack of computers and items in our school.
    However, the issues with our so-called "troubled schools" are not the schools at all-it is what the schools measure; which is in part, society. It is hard to teach when discipling a child likely turns into a smackdown with parents who think their child is God...it is hard when a single parent works two jobs and the student is dying for attention...
    The schools measure the students. Why are our students in poorer shape to begin with?
    I hate that schools are the new boogeyman (I am no referring to your sentiments, but your post got me thinking about the topic...

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