Category Archives: politics

Mantle of Leadership

Yesterday Texas Governor Rick Perry announced he is not running for reelection.

It was an announcement he was expecting to make after the legislative season, but was forced to make in this second special session because the Republicans tripped on their hubris trying to pass oppressive abortion laws at the last second of the first special session.

Magic The Gathering: Mantle Of LeadershipHe needed to get this announcement made because all the other Republicans in Texas politics need to start shuffling for their job upgrades and needed to know his plans so they could make theirs.

Last week Perry announced he had something to announce. Since then, people have been speculating. Most Texas watchers supposed he would be doing as he did. It humored me that CNN reported in the other direction. Continue reading

One Unwanted Gun Gone is a Good Thing

The back and forth on gun safety regulation is going strong and I expect it to continue earnestly through January if not longer. I hope something come’s of it.

Today in an NBC article there was a 2008 quote from a representative of the New Speak named Independent Institute. NBC News describes them as “conservative”, which seem reasonable given the quote.  The Institute itself claims to be non-partisan and says it “sponsors in-depth studies of critical social and economic issues”.

So, if the studies are in-depth, the quotes coming from their Research Director are a bit hyperbolic if not all out lies.

“It’s like trying to drain the Pacific with a bucket,” Alex Tabarrock of the conservative Independent Institute told USA Today in 2008There are an estimated 310 million guns in the U.S. — about one for every U.S. resident.

I would certainly not accuse Mr. Tabarrock of being a scientist.

There are legitimate questions as to whether gun buy-backs are useful or successful.  It depends greatly on how you would measure the success.  It seems the same people that would say “if we get one criminal off the streets, we’re doing good” aren’t willing to extend that tenuous logic to “if we get one weapon of possible death off the street, we’re doing good.”

If we even accept the sisyphian challenge false dichotomy Mr. Tabarrock presents us with, one intimating that unless we remove every gun from circulation that gun crimes will not be diminished, we should look at the numbers he is trying to scare us with.

In the last week I’ve read newspaper articles that totaled over 5,000 guns purchased back from citizens. With 310M guns at large, we would have to have 61,000 such weeks, or less than 1200 years.  Those are all rough numbers, but 1200 years is still a long time, and if that’s the point you’re trying to make, make it on that merit.

Now, the Pacific Ocean has 6.6 x 10^20 liters of water (1.7 x 10^20 gallons).  If we’re equating buckets with the guns, and not one buy-back event, and we stipulate that a bucket is about a gallon. That would leave us with 3.4 x 10^16 weeks or 653,846,153,846,153 years to empty the Pacific Ocean. That’s 544,871,794,871 times longer than slowly, in an unorganized manner, buying back guns.

That’s a ridiculous comparison.

But the implied point is equally ridiculous.  Buy back plans are not about appreciably reducing crime numbers.  The point is, if there is any unwanted gun, we should get it out of circulation.  All guns should be owned by responsible adults that handle and store them properly.  In the same way that if you have used motor oil, we need to provide a safe place for you to dump it, if you no longer want to be responsible for maintaining your gun, we should make it easy for you to get rid of it.  Responsibly.

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Final Debate Reaction

Often on the campaign trail Mitt Romney will never mention specifics and only regurgitate platitudes.  In the final debate on foreign policy (transcript) he did much the same.  When he didn’t speak in platitudes, he spoke in what he believed (which was often demonstrably false: “I don’t see our influence growing around the world. I see our influence receding”), or in incorrect facts.  But mostly it was platitudes.

I think this is best shown in his closing statement which is so full of no information, that I would love to have it presented by Obama and run it past conservative voters.

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The State & Education

I’m of the opinion that the state cannot spend too much money on education.  Ever dollar spent reaps rewards many fold over.

While the modern Republicans are more than happy to put words in the mouths of the Founding Fathers, and claim them as their own and no one else’s, if you return to the source material it is clear there is little in common between the two.

“Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to ; convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson  [The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series 12:442]

Meanwhile Republicans in Texas frame a platform that is so horrific that a Forbes blogger says “it is difficult to believe that what the Republicans put together during their convention in Fort Worth was even written in the 21st century.”

In particular the platform says we should not teach children to think.  Literally.  As if that is not the entire intent of (public) schooling.  (I can’t personally speak toward the intent of private or home schooling, but hope they would intend the same.)  I’m not sure whether it’s Double Speak or sarcasm that places their opinion under the title “Educating Our Children”.

Here’s the full text in context:

Knowledge Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority. [p12]

So the subtext here is that if we teach logic to children they might be able to “out think” their parents.  I certainly increasingly had rational discussions/arguments with my parents the more I grew/learned.  Those are stepping stones to becoming an adult.  Sounds like a muddy path is the one preferred in this platform.

Later in the same platform they add the following:

We support curricula that are heavily weighted on original founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and Founders’ writings. [p13, Traditional Principals]

Definitely sending mixed messages here, there’s nothing but higher order thinking going on in the Founders’ writings.

To be fair such Janus-faced statements are to be expected in a document by committee, and there are dozens more in this document

Two weeks ago House Speaker John Boehner (R) said “Have you ever met anybody who read the party platform? I’ve never met anybody.”[WSJ]  (His context was one in which candidate Mitt Romney wouldn’t seek an ultimate abortion ban despite the Platform calling for it.)  He also added the documents should only be a page long.  Reading the Texas Republican Party Platform for 2012, I am tempted to agree with him.

Plotz steps in some Aggie Poo

I was listening to the Slate Magazine Political Gabfest: The Never Alone edition as I do every week.  Their third topic (30:00) was the affirmative action case brought by Abigail Fisher against The University of Texas and race-based admissions policies being accepted by the Supreme Court.

At some point in to it (38:00) David Plotz supports the policy of automatic admission to the university by the top 10% of graduating high school students (in the state) as a nice alternative mechanism to obtaining diversity.  The truth of the matter is the 10% isn’t as automatic as it was in the 80s, and the 10% policy has been around for a long time – though I’m not sure if it predates affirmative action laws.

“The 10% idea, taking the top 10% of a class, is a really appealing one. … I presume that at Texas A&M, which is sort of second tier, maybe it’s the top 20% or something. …”

A a child of two UT alumni, and the 4th generation graduate of the UT, I laughed heartily at that one.  It’s been a few decades since I’ve had to deal with college admissions, but I recall their policies being relatively the same (I was accepted by both).  I can’t  wait to hear if John’s inbox filled up with letters from Aggies.

Then Plotz turns around and calls the top 10% of the class “ten percenters” which is generally a term for people who don’t put in more than 10% effort.  And it of course make Frank Black‘s voice stream through my brain singing about a slacker soda jerk: Continue reading