The Catholic Church in Crisis

The Roman Catholic Church is now embroiled in another abuse scandal.  It’s not a brand new one, but a carryover from the revelations made about the U.S. church in the 1990s, which led to the Conference of Bishops to write a “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”  According to the Conference[1], the charter was written in 2002, and updated in 2005, 2011, and again in 2018.  In essence, it calls for the church to help the victims heal from their abuse, while establishing guideline policies for the various Bishops to safeguard the faithful, and remove the offending clergy/lay ministers.  While it is a nice thing for the Bishops to say they have done, it appears to do very little to address the underlying human flaws within the organization, and accomplish what is really an impossible task, preventing one human from abusing another who is in a subservient position.

The latest scandal with the RC church in the United States stems from the mid-August release of a Grand Jury investigation by the Pennsylvania Attorney General detailing decades-long abuse by over 300 priests, and subsequent coverup by the various Bishops within the various dioceses across the state[2].  Released on the heels of this report is a letter from Archbishop Carlos Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio (effectively the Pope’s ambassador) to the United States from October 2011 until April 2016, detailing how the cover-up of top Bishops with the U.S. reaches all the way to the Pope[3].

If Archbishop Viganò’s claims are true it will create both a crisis of faith for the faithful and set off a civil war within the leadership of the church itself^[4].  We see now the opening salvos in this war with the release of a statement by the Pope saying he will not respond to the claim and Chicago’s Cardinal Cupich (one of the leaders identified by Viganò), which said in part. “The pope knows we have a bigger agenda. We have to speak about the environment, about the poor, we have to reach out to people who are marginalized in society. We cannot be distracted at this moment”[5].  For a layperson, this seems to epitomize the tone-deaf nature of an elite class within the church.  One that is far removed from the people they claim to serve as Christ’s representatives.

The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one true church stemming from Christ’s charge to Peter. “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”  (Matthew 16:18, New Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition) But over the next two millennium, the church did not remain as it was in those first days.  It has grown, reorganized, redefined the basis of faith, changed the relationship between the faithful and their God, and then the relationship between the apostles and those they were to share the news of Christ’s saving grace with. In the process, they implemented a set of classes that either make the practice of faith more palatable or as we see now create a system where the upper class finds it more important to protect than police their own who have risen to positions of power and importance.

In light of these failures, we see the faith of many common men and women being destroyed as they flee from the evils they see within the church.  But don’t be confused, what we now see played out in the Roman church is systemic within all the major religions and is only now getting press because of the scandal it can invoke.  If the press were really fair and balanced, as they claim, we would see them reflecting the outrage over the abuse of power within the Sunnis and Shites of Islam or the caste system of the Hindus.

Each of these faiths, Christian, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist, Judaism, and the rest, all have apologists with theological backgrounds to explain why they are right and how universal their beliefs are.  These men and women have knowledge that is far and away more extensive than mine, but I see the humanity for what it is.  We are by our nature imperfect, and the guidance of our books of faith was laid out to provide some order to the chaos in our societies.  As we reject the basis for those guidelines we see what we have today, increasing chaos.   The rising questions over the predatory nature of a percentage of the priesthood are one of the offshoots from that rejection of faith.

Now that we have laid out the issues facing the Roman Church, it seems only fair to understand where I come from and what my likely bias is.  That way you can either find value in my analysis or dismiss it out of hand as pure hogwash.

I grew up in a home that although it professed a faith, did very little to either express or encourage it in the children.  It was only when I reached my pre-teen years did I seek out religion in an effort to understand my place in the universe and attempt to understand the pain of parental abuse I was experiencing.  I found comfort in the fellowship of the fundamental protestant church and the guidance of ministers who seemed to care and support the development of a personal relationship with God.  As I went through my teen years I prayed every day, asking God to remove the curse of alcoholism from my father and end the physical abuse that occurred when he was drunk and his rage spilled out.  Mostly what I got back was silence.

By the time I headed off to college I was pretty convinced God wasn’t listening and the church was just a human construct to organize people into supporting a ministerial way of life for some.  While in college I spend considerable time on reflection and introspection and returned to God on a personal level, but to this day I maintain the organization of a church is fundamentally a human construct.  The theology of the major religions says I am wrong and the church is the God’s way of communicating with his faithful.  Ideally, the various churches are organized to help the faithful find a relationship with God, but on the human level, we should understand they are like competing businesses.  To maintain their base and grow, each must explain why they are the one true church and how everyone else is wrong.  Within the Christian faith, this is further broken down into a number of Catholic and Protestant divisions, each with a slightly different view of how God’s grace is to be apportioned.

So far, through my life, I’ve seen little to persuade me that my view is wrong.  For many, the organized church is absolutely critical to reinforce and encourage their faith and as a visible representation of God’s commitment to humanity.  For others, who reject the idea of God, the church is irrelevant and simply a crutch for those who can’t get by without the myth of a creator.  For most though, the church helps them with the daily struggle and in the best cases, it is a means to understand better what God desires of them to become more perfect human beings.  That said I can’t escape this one unanswerable question.  Is God so petty that only those who follow the right set of rules are allowed into heaven?  I just can’t conceive that to be true, but it is the construct that almost every faith or church relies on to sustain its followers.

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[1] http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/charter.cfm

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/08/14/grand-jury-report-pennsylvania-details-abuse-catholic-priests/980687002/

[3] https://www.scribd.com/document/387040553/TESTIMONY-of-His-Excellency-Carlo-Maria-Vigano-Titular-Archbishop-of-Ulpiana-Apostolic-Nuncio#from_embed

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/opinion/pope-francis-catholic-church-letter.html

[5] https://wgntv.com/2018/08/27/cardinal-blase-cupich-responds/

John S. McCain

Unfortunately, death is a consequence of life.  As much as some would deny it and attempt to postpone its inevitability it will find us all.  Some when we least expect it, others through a long and painful process.  The best we can hope for is that while we are alive we are truly alive and living a joyful life.

This weekend John S. McCain III lost his battle with a brain cancer called glioblastoma.  As of now the treatment of this cancer is limited and the prognosis is fixed.  The only real question is how long between discovery and death does the patient have?  I believe Senator McCain, CAPT, USN (Ret), accepted his fate with the same resolve he lived his life, but those with much closer knowledge will fill our news with testimony on this.  My observations of Senator McCain are, at best, limited and for the most part second hand taken from people I know and respect.

Brigadier General Bud Day and I once chatted about Senator McCain and he had nothing but praise for the man.  Having shared a room in the Hanoi Hilton I believe General Day had a view of the man’s character that few others could ever hope for.  So, when Senator McCain was vilified by the press in the 2008 Presidential campaign (as they sided with candidate Obama) and again vilified by President Trump’s supporters in 2017 I dismissed those accusations as pure political dirt.  For me, this was an easy choice.

But I also saw the petty side of the Senator as he allowed his anger to flare and cloud his reason from time to time.  There were instances when I saw him go back to his naval roots and actively seek to undermine the Air Force’s efforts to modernize.  In at least one instance I think it was based on a proposal to allow an Air Force General to command the United States Pacific Command (his father’s old job and historically a Navy position). 

As the years go by I think the legacy of John S. McCain will continue to be one his family, friends, supporters, and the nation will take pride in.  Historically, a son will try and live up to his father’s legacy.  I think John did that and more.  I wish his family strength in this time of loss, and God’s grace to John in his death.

It’s A Real Conundrum

The news this week is interesting in how it comes across in the various outlets and how the counter programming and social media depict the stories of interest.  Let’s start with Paul Manafort.

Paul Manafort, the former Campaign Chairman for the Trump campaign, is either guilty of 8-counts, or innocent of 10-counts, depending on your point of view.  He is either an outrageous crook or a sly businessman/lawyer/lobbyist who is only on trial because he is associated with President Trump.  While I suspect if there wasn’t a special prosecutor Manafort might have skated on the fraud issues, the fact he was found guilty is bad for him, but as far as I can tell has nothing to do with Russian interference of the 2016 election.  An election I would point out Candidate Trump said was rigged and all the Dems poo-pooed as impossible (at least until they lost).

Michael Cohen, (I assume now former) lawyer/fixer for Donald Trump, has pled guilty of bank and tax fraud and campaign finance violations for paying off President Trump's paramours in an attempt to minimize the public outcries for his messing around on his wife (# 3 I think).  The charges on the bank and tax fraud issues cover a period of 5-years and I believe are also irrelevant with regards to Russians hacking into the election to change the course of U.S. history.  The money he paid the women constituted an illegal “in-kind” campaign contribution and was allegedly made with the knowledge and approval of the candidate. 

The left would have us believe these are “high crimes and misdemeanors” and therefore are impeachable offenses.  Looking rationally at it, if the Dems were in charge of the House they might make their case, but I’m hard-pressed to understand how a campaign violation by a candidate rises to an impeachable offense when impeachment has historically been used to attempt to remove a President for something he did while holding the office.  (Cases on point.  Andrew Johnson was accused of violating the “Tenure of Office Act” as President. In this case one of the cabinet members got the Congress to act because he was fired and had friends who could protect him.  Richard Nixon resigned before articles of impeachment were approved but it would most likely have been related to the criminal activity of spying on the DNC in the 1972 election.  Finally, Bill Clinton was impeached for his role in attempting to cover up his affair with Lewinsky and mislead the Kenneth Star investigation on Whitewater, both of which occurred while he was a sitting President.) 

That said, in today’s world precedent has little to do with the seemingly irrational choices politicians make in an effort to impress their friends and supporters.  Realistically, does anyone really think if his affairs had come out it would have made that much of a difference in the general election or that the Russians prevented the DNC from finding out about them and using them against Mr. Trump?  As much as one side now claims marriage fidelity is important for a President, that ship sailed in the 1990s.

Of course, we have a number of politicians being indicted on a variety of criminal charges like fraud.  I think there is probably an equal number of Rs and Ds but without a scorecard, it is hard to keep track.  So, I fall back on an old truth (or joke) – when do you know a politician (or lawyer) is lying to you?  When their lips are moving.

Next, we have the discovery of Molly Tibbets a young woman who went missing in mid-July whose body was discovered Tuesday and almost immediately someone was charged with her murder.  The man charged is a 24-year old illegal (undocumented if you prefer) immigrant from Mexico.  Those on the left have risen up to dismiss the nature of her killer and his illegal status as unimportant, with Dr. Christina Greer of Fordham University going so far as to dismiss it entirely since it didn’t fit the narrative she wanted to discuss.  According to Dr. Greer, the news should focus entirely on how the Republican Party is not standing up to Donald Trump.  The fact some “girl in Iowa” was killed just wasn’t that important.  Of course, this was on MSNBC and she was being critical of FOX so it is really okay, isn’t it?  Senator Warren had to weigh in and note that her death wasn’t nearly as important as separating mothers from the children at the border while still others point out the real problem is toxic masculinity.  Of course, some suggested discussing this death and linking it to border security was just pure political theater and the President and his supporters were just crass for doing so.  Not that the previous administration ever did such a thing.

So where is the conundrum?  Each time the Republicans do something to suggest I really should consider dropping my affiliation with them (like having candidates who are indicted or horribly obnoxious) the Democratic party and their spokespeople show me the alternative party is far worse.  Despite its warts and imperfections, at least the Republicans want to keep what appears to be at least a semi-viable government.  The other side really seems to be approaching a level of insanity I can’t understand as they focus almost exclusively on the evil they call Trump and would have us just turn over government to the UN, at least until they figure out the UN only loves us for our cash.  For the socialists among them, they propose the same unsupportable concepts that have made Cuba and Venezuela the economic juggernauts they are today.  It is simply a matter of greed on the part of the haves, and if the government would just step in and make the haves give all their wealth to the have-nots then everything would be great.  All we need to do is nationalize everything and let everyone work for the government.

With this logic, since fiscal policies are set by the Federal Reserve they are the real evil and we should nationalize it (remove its autonomy), along with all the banks and investment companies, and then everything would be perfect. 

That is my conundrum… I don’t think bigger government is the answer and as imperfect as the RNC is, there still appears to be a sliver of sanity within it, while on the other side of the aisle – not so much (e.g. Antifa beating a fellow liberal protestor senseless because he had an American Flag).

In My Office

In my office there are two American Flags neatly folded and encased.  One commemorates my father’s service in the United States Navy at the end of the Second World War, the other my service in the United States Air Force following my graduation from college until my retirement in the mid-1990s.  Each represents an ideal that America is a nation worth defending.  For some, perhaps too many, the cost of that defense is a terrible price paid with their lives, their limbs, or their emotional strength and well-being.

It saddens me terribly to see we’ve not taught so many of our young the values that have made the nation one worth our trust and allegiance. It saddens me as well to see the pettiness of the politicians, political leaders, and public media we choose to listen to.  We live in a trying time.  History can teach us about the events, but it is next to impossible to fully immerse ourselves into the raw emotions of a time long past, so I wonder what it was like in the days leading up to the succession of the southern states and their decision to fire on Fort Sumter?

Tomorrow the President will honor the memory of Air Force Technical Sergeant John Chapman when he presents his family with our nation’s highest military honor.  For the community I’ve spent most of my adult life in this is a proud moment that comes at a trying time for our nation.  I wish it were otherwise, but then is there ever a good time for a grieving family to be recognized?

I leave you with one simple thought.  For those who loathe our President and would destroy this nation because of him: be careful what you wish for, what comes next will not be better.

A Question of Education (part II)

Continued

What Has Our Current Educational System Given us?  This is an almost impossible question to answer with any true legitimacy because we have no idea of the outcomes if we had made alternative choices.  True, we can look around and make assessments, but they are directly flavored by the political divide this country is fracturing into.

What I see:  Large universities are becoming rich at the cost of overwhelming student debt (which a socialist left would have forgiven by making it a part of our national debt).  A significant percentage of students emerge from their time at college without the skills employers are seeking.  The promise of increased earnings from a basic college degree is becoming a distant memory.  An understanding and appreciation for civics (the nature of our nation-state), is disappearing – along with a respect for how we should change those things worth changing.  The ability to reason, debate and resolve conflict no longer seems to be a part of the political process.  Educators seem to have instilled in the young a belief the government is responsible for their success or failure, rather than understanding personal accountability.  Let’s look at each of these separately.

The United States spends more per student on education than most other developed countries,[1] but with far less success than places in northern Europe or Asia.  Just to be clear, those countries have a fairly homogenous population and set high expectations for the young.  With those expectations comes a stress to excel and with that stress, failure takes on a very personal penalty.  We, on the other hand, have an ethnically diverse population with a much larger issue with integration into a common cultural norm.  That is a fact, but perhaps not the central issue.  Beginning with the post-World War II years we’ve seen the Federal government push the universities to ever larger sizes with the funding of student education, first through the creation of the Veterans benefits and then through guaranteed student loans.  Both of these programs have had huge impacts on our nation, and few would argue they’ve not been overwhelming successes for the lives of most who’ve benefitted from them.  At the same time though we’ve created an expectation on the part of state university systems that they are due to all the federal funding they can get.  They are now an industry, just like Monsanto, and like Monsanto, they lobby for their “fair share” of the government dole.  At the same time tier, 1 schools and school systems have increased their endowments to epic proportions[2] where their values are measured in billions of dollars. 

Where do we start with understanding a cause?  Let’s start with the role of politics as it has been introduced into the equation because of the huge amount of dollars we spend.  (Federal Department of Education alone sends the states about $15 billion/year[3]).  With our perpetually elected Congress and the educational lobbyists who enrich them, we can see a real correlation.  Clearly, Congress has written laws that have taken the risk of loaning money off the backs of the bankers and placed it on the backs of the taxpayers who guarantee these loans.  Meanwhile, the airwaves are filled with commercials talking about how much more money a college graduate will make than someone with just a high school diploma.  But is that really true?  Today we have a deficit of people with the skills necessary to keep our society viable, and an overabundance of people with little experience in anything other than going to school, but who’ve been thoroughly indoctrinated into supporting the preferred political solutions of their educational professionals. 

Thanks to the support of our politicians the cost of education has far outpaced the inflation index for the past 40-years.  This chart[4] from InflationData.com shows how much the universities have increased costs compared to the standard inflation of consumer prices since 1985. 

We hear a tremendous outcry over the “greed” of industries like bankers and investment firms, or hear about the billionaires of the tech industries or the wealthy 1%, but where is the outcry over the wealth of institutions like Harvard, Yale, or the California and New York university systems?  Is it because those advocating for the vilification of the 1% have a personal stake in not protesting their own jobs? 

Take, for example, Senator Warren (D-MA)[5] who left what seemed to be a cushy job at Harvard where she was paid over $400,000/year[6] to teach (there are claims she taught a single course but there is little hard data to support or refute this claim).  This afforded her the opportunity to earn additional income through consultation with both private companies and the Federal Government.  She is now a Senator lambasting the rich, but I don’t see much comment on the wealth of the educational institutions where she has spent so much of her adult life.  She and many of her colleagues clearly fall in the top 1% themselves and seem to make no effort to voluntarily pay what they say is their fair share of taxes so others can be cared for without regard to cost.

What has this push for college education done for the average citizen/student who is looking to make the most for themselves and their families?  What we see in the news is the tremendous burden of student debt we have created.  According to Student Loan Hero website[7], the average student in the class of 2017 graduates from college with a debt burden of $39,400 and the total debt is a staggering $1.4 trillion dollars.  How did this occur? That’s easy, the politically powerful in the country serve as advocates for the educational system.  Routinely we see a crossflow of people moving from education to government and back to education as each administration seeks the “best and brightest” to implement their agenda.  The same thing is said of industry and each is a reasonable fact of life, but there is clearly a willingness to enrich those centers of education by creating both the demand for education and the means to enrich those who play along with this whole process. 

But what kind of job market are they coming out of college into?  Well, obviously that depends on what kind of job market the country has based on its involvement in the current (capitalist) based system.  As in most things, there seems to be a natural cycle where the economy ebbs and flows, but what the record has shown in the 20^th and 21^st centuries is the greater the government involvement in regulating and controlling the free market system the greater the likelihood of stagnation and job loss through poor policy and market manipulation.  The year 2008 stands as a testament to this, when the government support of cheap money for housing for those who could not afford to repay their loans lead to a collapse of the housing market, and bankruptcies for tens of thousands if not millions of families.

With millions of unemployed workers, salaries stagnate and new graduates find little improvement in their lives.  As universities encourage students to spend their time studying areas that offer great social awareness, but little social value they come out of college with debt but ill-prepared for a job market where specific skills are in demand and a degree in women’s studies only prepares them for more education.  But even when students pursue degrees in the touted STEM disciplines, the fact the job market is so soft creates a real question of how does a degree generate a reasonable return on investment?

The other day I was talking to my brother, an electrical engineer, and he gave me a great example of how this all fits together.  When he graduated from college in the 1980s his cost of education was about $45,000 dollars.  His starting salary as an engineer was $28,000/year.  His daughter recently graduated from college with an engineering degree, her cost of education was well over $200,000 but her starting salary is $45,000.  A markedly reduced return on investment.  Life for teachers, who will have about the same sunk cost in education is significantly worse since their salaries routinely fail to keep pace with private industry.

Now let’s consider how education has changed from opening minds to political indoctrination.

Who are our teachers?  Teaching is a unique profession, and as in all professions there is a standard for admittance into it, and with expanding government regulation a licensing process the selection process seems to narrow to those who have a common view of the role of a teacher.  One of the things that make the majority of teachers unique is they are government employees (obviously private/religious schools are the exception).  As public employees, their salaries are set by the state legislatures and the role of the union would seem to be one akin to a lobbyist where they persuade the local and state politicians to reward their members with good salaries.  But there is a difference, like all unions they have from time to time taken their members out on strike and when this happens the union members seem to act exactly as if they were any other union with protest and occasional violence against those who fail to support them.

Who trains our teachers?  Teachers are trained by other teachers, who work at the college/university level and who are quite possibly employed for life through the tenure system.  Reducing their accountability for job performance to nearly zero.  While I have not bothered to actually check on the credentials of the tenured professors there is enough information in the news to suggest these individuals come mostly from my generation were for the male’s college was a way to escape military service, and their formative years were spent advocating for social upheaval.  They have risen to positions of authority where they have surrounded themselves with like-thinking individuals and are now engrained in the institutional structures creating a social bubble for themselves and their students that mirrors what we see in socialism.  There is only one right answer and failure to adhere to that idea will result in loss of position, failure and perhaps expulsion.

Over the past thirty years, we’ve seen our educators set on a path of cultural change that removes the focus from learning to indoctrination to support a single-party political state, where the citizen is dependent on the largess of the state for their physical well-being.  With the fall the of the Soviet Union teachers can push aside the evil that occurred in that government and selectively celebrate the free healthcare, universal employment, and educational benefits while casting aside the empty store shelves, state oversight of one’s personal life, and the slaughter of millions of its citizens.  To do this they must make time in the curriculum -- so the study of our own civic responsibility within the republic seems to be far less important.

One of the historical roles of education was to teach the young the history of civilization and how it has evolved to create the modern world.  It seems now educators are more concerned with teaching how we must reshape society to conform to their expectations and we are now expected to vilify those who’ve gone before us.  Their failures are the focus of a great debate about the evils of society.  In the course of this shift in focus, any thought of celebrating the successes of society are cast aside and a full discussion of the pros and cons of the society are lost.  Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, also known as George Santayana, reminds us “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  I believe what is most important in this idea is knowing that remembering requires us to understand the context of the past as well as just a few random events.  That distinction seems to be lost on today’s youth.  Perhaps because the teachers are focused on reshaping the minds to think as they think, rather than creating a true liberal learning environment?

Then we enter into the whole politically correct and sensitive speech arena where you just can’t express yourself, you’ve got to self-regulate so as to avoid any potential for offense to those who might disagree with you.

The whole myth of politically correct speech is cloaked with the idea it is about being sensitive to others.  I think nothing could be further from the truth.  The idea of controlling speech has been, and will always be, about control and domination of the political debate.  How better to win an argument than to limit the opponent’s ability to respond by changing the meanings of words, by identifying words as offensive, and by shaming the opposition into a subordinate position.  Who better to do this indoctrination than the educators we turn our children over to?

Sadly, what I see in reading the commentary on social media of the socially conscious millennial is an inability to distinguish fact from opinion and a willingness to forsake reason for instant gratification as they respond to some media-generated outrage.  I wonder, will they change as they grow older?  If my generation is any indication I fear they will not.

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[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-education-spending-tops-global-list-study-shows/

[2] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/2017-09-28/10-universities-with-the-biggest-endowments

[3] https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/history/index.html

[4] https://inflationdata.com/articles/charts/college-tuition-fees-inflation/

[5] https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/01/13/elizabeth-warren-salary-topped-over-two-years/pRhtt3yITonYDO7SXiongJ/story.html

[6] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elizabeth-warren-wealthy-native-american/

[7] https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/

A Question on Education (part 1)

As the new homestead becomes more organized and the panoramic windows of the sunroom show the light of a new day the quiet of a home still asleep affords me time for reflection, meditation, and prayer.  I love this time.  In this morning’s reflection, I thought about the role our educators play in shaping society.

Without educators, society would not advance.  We’d still be trying to figure out how to use rocks as tools to shape our environment, feed, and protect ourselves.  Each generation would be starting from scratch, rather than building on the lessons of previous generations.  The people who choose to share their knowledge and insight is one of the things that separates us from other species – that and the fact we use disposable footwear.

Throughout the history of mankind, there have been those who’ve discovered great truths and have shared those discoveries with others, and there have been those who although they’ve not discovered great things learned of them and passed them along to a much broader audience.  These “teachers” have been and are the backbone of our civilization.  Because of them, we have advanced from small isolated nomadic tribes into great societies. 

I think of a teacher as one who opens the eyes of the young, not to a particular belief, but to the almost infinite variety of the world around them.  Teachers differ from trainers in this important aspect.  Trainers teach someone how to do a specific thing in an approved manner.  On the other hand, teachers should instill a desire to learn, to think, to question and to expand their personal horizon.  The better they are at creating a questioning mind the closer they come to greatness.  Unfortunately, despite today’s trend for participation trophies, greatness is found only in the smallest minority of the population.  The rest of us struggle to just be above average, or surrender to life and become numbers on a bell-shaped curve.

Teaching has always come with some risk.  Take, for example, Socrates.  Perhaps the first great philosopher of Athens, teacher of Plato and Xenophon[1], he is credited with creating the basis for modern (Western) logic and argument.  Yet, as Athens declined he was tried, convicted, and executed for arguing against the way Athenians clung to past glory rather than advance their political thinking.  Perhaps that will always be the way with education; those great thinkers among us see things differently and when the traditional ways are challenged there is a societal push back.

But not every teacher is a Socrates or a Plato.  As we see in modern media, the idea of rigorous debate, logic, and argument are as much out of favor today as in ancient Greece.  There are those who cling to the past, and there are those who revile it.  So, what is the role of a teacher in these times?  Is to indoctrinate the young into thinking in the right way, or is it to create a questioning mind open to the possibilities?

From my perch – it seems to me the institutions where debate, argument, and enlightenment should occur have turned into training centers rather than high schools, colleges, and universities.  Young minds are not opened to the possibilities, they are shaped into the same boxes their educators were shaped into and come away with a belief system so fragile it cannot stand up to challenge.  If challenged – the response is almost always visceral.  Isn’t this what we see in society today?  Who trained these behaviors into our young?  The answer is simple, we did.  As parents and teachers, we have taught our children to act as they do, but we have also trusted our educators to maintain and strengthen our society, but it seems they have moved away from that role into one of their own choosing.

Perhaps it’s because we’ve moved decisions on education away from a local level of cooperative control to indifferent State and Federal bureaucracies, or maybe it is because our teachers have been trained by those who disparage our society?  Then again, perhaps it is as the entertainment industry has informed us we are too narrow-minded to be trusted with educational decisions and they must be left to education professionals with PhDs? Could it be perhaps as simple as the age-old struggle between workers and owners?  Is it possible the unionization of teachers where the power of the union, and politicians willing to spend other people’s money, have made the unions so powerful they are able to protect politically important but incompetent teachers who are committed to the success of a single political party over the ideals of true liberal education, which opens the minds of students and teaches them to think for themselves?  Everyone seems to have an opinion on a cause, but I don’t see a lot of viable solutions, and what has the current system gained us?

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[1] https://www.biography.com/people/socrates-9488126

Pushing Back on Critical Race Theory

Derrick Bell, a prominent Harvard Law School professor, who later moved to the law school at NYU, together with Alan Freeman of SUNY-Buffalo Law School developed the idea of Critical Race Theory (CRT), as an outgrowth of their work on Critical Law Theory and their disappointment in the slowing of race equality in the 1970s.  The work was widely viewed as ground-breaking within the progressive movement in defining the problems with achieving full equality.  I’ve written in the past on CRT, and the central position that only those in power can be racists while those not in power cannot.  Supporters of CRT translate this to cover the entirety of racial relationships between Caucasians and the rest of the world, seemingly oblivious to the fact Caucasians may not be the race in power in most of the rest of the world.

The problem I see in this theory is the assumption the minority can never be in control or exert their power over a majority.  Even when it proves otherwise, supporters of CRT adhere dogmatically that minorities cannot be racists and only the white majority, attempting to hold the minorities as subservient are the racists.

So here we are in the post-Obama years, when the nation elected a minority President who demonstrated his ability to use the power of the federal government against his opponents and further the goals of his supporters and use race as a club against those who would disagree with his political positions, yet still the left retains the idea that the majority population, by their mere heritage is and will always be racist.

With this assumption, I have to ask – is equality ever possible, or is it really just an illusion in the battle for political domination and the wealth that comes with it?  What I see today are the separate political activists (themselves minorities within the minorities, i.e. LGBTQ, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians) all fighting it out to demand the Caucasian majority submit to their vision of political correctness/control. I suppose I could be wrong in this view, but so far the evidence of how CRT is applied to the political dialogue directly supports it.  If I am wrong it would be nice for someone to show me how I am wrong, but as of right now I assume those who believe I am wrong will reflect I am wrong by asserting I am just another old white racist.  It truly appears to me to be the perfect example of Joseph Heller’s catch-22.

After the 8-years when the Obama administration used all the power of the federal government to attack their political opponents, we have seen a pushback by the usually silent middle class, looking for some sense of normalcy in government.  The average person, more concerned with leading a safe and secure life than changing the entirety of the human condition, has come to mistrust those who have no argument other than everything is the fault of the European-Americans.  Unfortunately, those who make this argument apparently have no recourse but to double down, as if that will prove the validity of their thinking. 

The most recent example is the NY Times hire Sarah Jeong to its editorial board as a specialist in technology.  Ms. Jeong has a long track record on Twitter of railing against the right and wishing that all “old white men” would just die off.  The Times defended its choice saying it had spoken with Ms. Jeong about how best to handle her critics, but clearly, they do not hold Ms. Jeong to the same standards as say a Rosanne Barr.  Clearly, as a Harvard educated woman of Korean heritage she cannot be a racist, so everything is okay.

What this dogmatic commitment to an academic theory is doing seems to be completely contra-productive to a goal of achieving equality and will, I am afraid, only accelerate the movement of rational centralists away from the DNC.  The party will find its power isolated to the rich urban areas where they are sure they are superior to those hicks in the ‘burbs, and as Trump showed in the 2016 election the coastal elites will not gain enough electoral votes to win against him, or whoever succeeds him.  

Of course, the radical left has little concern with this outcome as they riot in the streets, seeking to gain greater government response and hopefully reducing the belief in a government to provide a safe and secure environment for its citizens. 

Perhaps the best thing the Federal government could do is let the major cities deal with this disruption as they see fit, and just stop federal funding for all their services.  Unfortunately, this would create situations envisioned by John Carpenter in such Hollywood blockbusters as “Escape from NY” or “Escape for LA” starring the ever-popular Kurt Russell.  In those films, there was some apocalyptic event.  Maybe the nomination of Ocasio-Cortez as the DNC’s 2024 Presidential candidate will be that event (she will be 35 right?).

Evolution

Who says we aren’t evolving?  Just take a look at how we’ve modernized infant transportation.

First, the native Americans used a cumbersome backpack to carry their young.

Native Papoose Carrier

Then we European-Americans developed the always useful stroller.

Stroller from late 19th Century

But we came to recognize the natives had a good idea and we just made it a little more comfortable.

Infant carrier from late 20th Century

Now we have evolved to recognize maybe the kid should be the first to get to wherever we are going.

Modern Carrier (multi-use - kids or pets)