The Obama Administration, which has had a White House Council on Women and Girls for two years, is sitting on a proposal to create a similar council to focus on men and boys — a proposal put together by a diverse commission on a promise by an administration official. (Daily Caller)
Apr 122011
Bryan Caplan’s message to parents: Stress less — it’s good for you and your kids. (NYT) Will Wilkinson isn’t impressed with Caplan’s advice to have more kids. (WSJ)
Are women earning less than men because of discrimination? A feminist says yes in The Washington Post; a conservative woman says no in The Wall Street Journal.
A single mother who said she feared her 9-year-old autistic son’s cancer medications would kill him has been convicted of attempted murder for terminating the drugs. (MSNBC)
Apr 122011
Last year, total student loans surpassed credit-card debt, and this year it may hit $1 trillion — a fivefold increase in 11 years. (NYT)
The Times quotes people who think student loans are good debt because of what you get for them. Certainly, it’s wiser to take a student loan than to borrow on your credit card for a vacation. But the only genuinely good debt is debt that’s secured by an asset you can sell to pay off the debt: such debt is a burden you can shed whenever it becomes inconvenient. Student loans, by contrast, cannot even be shed if you go bankrupt — that is, the law requires you to pay these debts even if it is mathematically impossible for you to do so. Federal student loans are now mitigated by an income-based repayment plan, but not all student debt is federal.
And as The Times points out, these loans can retard people’s progress toward marriage and reproduction. “Things like buying a home, starting a family, starting a business, saving for their own kids’ education may not be options for people who are paying off a lot of student debt,” says one expert.
Of course, student debt is not the only claim on recent graduates’ money besides their present and future needs: there’s also credit-card debt and government debt.
Apr 112011
Peter Thiel called the dot-com bubble and the real-estate bubble, and now he says there’s an education bubble: “You have to get rid of the future you wanted to pay off all the debt from the fancy school that was supposed to give you that future.” (TechCrunch)
Student debt is a huge problem, for me personally and for many people. Just today I was warning a former student that even though law school can be a great three years, you may find yourself owing more than you can pay.
As Thiel notes, one problem is that student debt is nearly impossible to get rid of in bankruptcy. And while (as he doesn’t note) there are programs to help make federal student loans more manageable, these programs don’t apply to private student loans — but the special protection in bankruptcy court does.
Still, we might ask why someone would abandon his future desires to satisfy a creditor. If your goal in life is to pursue your own flourishing, you may be better off defaulting than meeting your obligations: Even a student lender doesn’t have the right to put you in debtors’ prison, and as Ayn Rand wrote, “no human being can hold on another a claim demanding that he wipe himself out of existence.” It is never morally obligatory, or even morally acceptable, to sacrifice the values for which you live to meet another’s demands, even if you agreed to do it.
Apr 082011
The Pepperdine Libertarians ran an impressive protest of the TSA, demanding that students entering convocation (a weekly event there) submit to airport-style screening. They even asked students to submit to voluntary pat-downs.
As the Pepperdine Libertarians suggest, airlines should be free to set their own security standards; then customers can decide what standards they wish to accept. The price of being unwilling to be pornoscanned or groped would no longer be being unable to fly.
And just possibly, if security were responsible to the airlines, even intense security measures might be conducted in a less unpleasant way. I suspect the libertarians were able to get people to agree to be patted down in part because the targets were male college students and the activists were good-looking female college students. Perhaps the airlines might take a cue.
Mar 172011
Nine versions of The Minstrel Boy for your St. Patrick’s Day enjoyment:
1. Sung by one of my favorite singers, from whose recording I first learned it:
2. And here is a rather different version by another of my favorite singers:
3. And here’s a very different version. Am I including it only because it comes with a Firefly video? Maybe.
4. Another well-sung version, with a drum as lone accompaniment. I’ve commented on the third verse.
5. An instrumental version that waters the eyes.
6. A high-energy take by Danny Quinn to bring you back from that.
7. I went looking for a version with an actual harp. Here’s one on just a harp (followed by “Sally Gardens”):
8. And here’s one with harp and vocal — and the singer’s a woman, unlike the overwhelming majority of solo singers in videos I’ve found of this song.
9. And finally, Enter the Haggis, for those who prefer electric guitar — or who, like me, enjoy seeing people take ownership of a familiar song by adapting it to their own style:
Mar 082011
Research on parents’ role in underage drinking has been limited. A survey of 6,245 U.S. teens, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2004, found that adults play a very important role in teen drinking—but in different ways. Teens who attended a party where alcohol was supplied by a parent were twice as likely to have engaged in binge drinking and twice as likely to be regular drinkers. But teens who drank along with their parents were only one-third as likely to binge and half as likely to be regular drinkers.
—Should Parents Let Their Teenage Children Drink at Home? – WSJ.com.
The Journal says 31 states permit “parents, guardians or spouses” to give minors drinks, at least in the privacy of their own homes. (And 19 don’t?!)
It seems obvious that people who develop their drinking habits with responsible advice and supervision will normally develop good drinking habits, while those who can only get alcohol under the influence of the irresponsible will develop bad ones.
Mar 072011
I started this some time ago, and apologize for taking so long.
At the end of my open letter on the CPAC boycott, I said I wanted answers. I have received some, both from Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse on the blog of the Ruth Institute, and in comments on that post and mine. I thank her and all others who took the time to reply.
The first thing I have to say in response is that I stand corrected on one point: Dr. Morse did not boycott CPAC and was not responsible for the National Organization for Marriage’s decision to do so. Although NOM and Ruth are related, there is a distinction between the two, and Ruth has not previously gone to CPAC. So Dr. Morse tells me, and I take her word for it. I apologize for my error, and am glad that she is not personally responsible for the boycott. I am also glad to know that Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher “do not consult [her] on their political decisions and strategies,” because the boycott is not the first time that Mr. Brown has appeared to me to cross the line from pro-straight to anti-gay.
It is true, as Dr. Morse says, that “the issue surrounding the boycott was whether GOProud is in fact a conservative organization.” However, in the context of CPAC 2011, this is an easier question than it might otherwise be. CPAC this year welcomed several libertarian organizations and two libertarian Republican presidential prospects. That requires a rather broad definition of “conservative.” (Next year’s CPAC may not welcome libertarians.)
Indeed, one of those libertarian Republican prospects who spoke from CPAC’s main stage and had a booth near GOProud’s is Gov. Gary Johnson. Governor Johnson is pro-choice, and he has said: “I do support gay unions. I think the government should be out of the marriage business and leave marriage to the churches.”
I do not dismiss anyone’s position as bigotry; rather, I look for non-bigoted reasons that might explain their position. I was unable to find such for the boycott, especially considering that no other organization faced such a reaction. I therefore reached a tentative conclusion that bigotry was involved — a conclusion after looking for alternative explanations, not a dismissal to save me from having to take other people’s views seriously.
As to whether the Constitution ought to be amended to deprive the states of the power to legalize same-sex marriage, the question is not what the best conservative position is, but whether federalism on SSM is a conservative position. And that means: whether anyone who takes constitutional conservatism seriously enough to be willing to respect the authority of states that sanction same-sex marriage, counts as a conservative. To Dr. Morse, unsurprisingly, the issue of SSM is more important than the issue of state autonomy. Others disagree. Now, perhaps those others ought to be written out of conservatism, and that is indeed a debate reasonable people could have; one need not be a bigot to say that preserving the conceptual structure of the natural family is so much more important from a conservative perspective than keeping the federal government’s role small that anyone who is willing to allow states to legalize same-sex marriage cannot count as a conservative. But considering the widespread embrace of “states’ rights” arguments among conservatives, including the use of such arguments to defend the laws of states that have rejected same-sex marriage, a definition of conservative that excludes people who take constitutional principles of federalism seriously enough to accept the decision of a state with which they disagree on an important issue seems likely to exclude a great many people who would normally be regarded as conservative.
Indeed, the most potent movement in conservatism right now is the Tea Party, which is animated by the idea that the federal government has gotten too big. That being so, I cannot agree that “federalism is [not] a serious position for conservatives.”
Nor can I agree that “[c]harges of bigotry are completely out of line.” Such charges are often inappropriately made; it is, for example, inappropriate to assume that anyone who does not think a same-sex union can constitute a marriage is a bigot. But to exclude gay people, as such, from the conservative movement would be bigotry. Therefore, to exclude an organization that is distinguished from other organizations that claim to be conservative chiefly by its identification as an organization for gay conservatives and its focus on conservative solutions to the problems gay people face, when other organizations with demographic identities are welcome, presents at least a reasonable suspicion of bigotry. That makes it proper to discuss the charge.
I asked for answers, and I have received them. Dr. Morse is not a boycotter, and neither she nor her organization endorsed the article claiming there could be no gay conservatives. There are arguments that can be made as to whether GOProud should have been included in CPAC, although the argument against it is a frail one and would likely exclude many other organizations — and while there remains ground for suspicion that bigotry was a major factor in the boycott, the case is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
One further point: I have not found evidence that any other organization or prospective candidate that was known at the time the boycott was announced to be expected at CPAC was explicitly on the record as supporting either same-sex marriage or the authority of states to establish same-sex marriage. Libertarians do tend to be pro-choice and for the privatization of marriage, but it is not the case that everyone who identifies as libertarian holds those views, so while I’d bet money that plenty of individuals at CPAC did, I can’t be certain that individuals or organizations that had at least the same status there as GOProud did (except Governor Johnson, and his speech was a late addition). So I can’t say that the boycotters targeted GOProud but failed to apply the same judgment to organizations that shared GOProud’s views but did not consist (primarily) of gay individuals. On the other hand, the letter announcing the boycott did not demand, as ideological purity would seem to have required, that some inquiry be made into the publicly stated positions of the libertarian organizations and leaders invited to CPAC. Everyone on the right who pays any attention to such things is aware that libertarians and social conservatives tend to disagree, so the boycotters had ample reason to suspect that some of the libertarians at CPAC disagreed with them.
To reply to some other people:
“John Howard” argues that if GOProud is not against SSM in every state, GOProud is for SSM. This is fallacious. It is possible to be neutral on an issue. Also, I deny on conservative, federalist grounds that there should be a federal law restricting conception to natural conception. (I also deny that there should be any such law at any level, but for reasons that are not conservative.)
Paul H says I do not recognize a distinction between two senses of “gay”: being attracted to the same sex and morally approving of sexual acts between members of the same sex. This is true. The latter is not a sense of “gay”; it describes plenty of people who are not gay. That said, there is a distinction between being gay and approving of gay sexual acts, and it seems very likely that people who would organize under the name “GOProud” are in both categories. And while it may not qualify as bigotry to hold that homosexual acts are immoral, I do not think it can be justified to exclude people from a political movement for not sharing one’s views on this question.
Natalie Portman, the actress, was once an Intel (formerly Westinghouse) Science Talent Search semifinalist. But that’s not the only scientific distinction earned by a gorgeous actress: Mayim Bialik, Ph.D., likes to say, “I am a neuroscientist, and I play one on TV.” And Hedy Lamarr was a rocket scientist. (The New York Times)
The Times does not mention the third role Portman is taking on, after star and scientist: mother, which in her acceptance speech she called the “most important role of my life.”
The Times also fails to mention any men who are both scientists and actors, but does take time to note that one man sometimes assumed to be a scientist is not: Leonard Nimoy.
Education Dept. attacks rights of the accused
The Department of Education claims it is “committed to ensuring that all students feel safe and have the opportunity to benefit fully from their schools’ education programs and activities.” But this month, it issued a letter that will make some students — male students — less safe on the nation’s campuses.
The letter demands that schools reduce the protections afforded students who are accused of sexual harassment, which it defines so broadly that anyone whose request for a date is turned down may immediately be accused of it:
The letter acknowledges that not all sexual harassment creates a hostile environment, but it does not limit its demands to cases that rise to that level. Look appreciatively at your classmate’s figure, pester her for a date every day even after she repeatedly asks you to stop, or knock her down in the back alley and rape her: the same concept and many of the same demands will apply.
One of those demands is that the complaint must be judged by a “preponderance of the evidence” standard. That means that if there is just the tiniest bit more reason to think that you are guilty than that you are innocent, you must be convicted. The standard is not only lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard used in criminal law, it is lower than the “clear and convincing evidence” standard used at many universities. Indeed, if an accuser makes up a detailed story and asserts it with confidence, and the accused has no clear recollection, this standard may lead to conviction.
Those who argue that student discipline shouldn’t offer the same protections as the criminal courts often argue that the two institutions are very different: student discipline has an educative function, so people should be less interested in procedural protections and more interested in working together for everyone’s benefit. But one big difference the advocates of this view often defend is that student discipline often is, and in their view ought to be, confidential.
And the Department of Education’s letter attacks that confidentiality in sexual harassment cases. Not only does it insist that accusers be made aware of decisions, it demands that they not be required to agree not to disclose them further.
What this means is that if you are convicted of rape by a preponderance of the evidence, the accuser can then go to the student paper and publish the fact.
You, on the other hand, may not accuse the accuser of making false rape charges, even if a preponderance of the evidence says you’re not guilty. That would be retaliatory harassment, and schools are required to protect accusers from retaliatory harassment. (p.16)
The assault on accused students’ procedural protections doesn’t end with the standard of proof. Normally, if you’re acquitted of misconduct, that’s the end of it, or ought to be. But this letter demands that if accused students are offered the opportunity to appeal convictions, students whose charges fail the first time around must be given the chance to appeal on the same terms. (p. 12)
Even before the case has been judged by the lax standard the letter prescribes, the department says schools should intervene to protect accusers from the accused — at minimal burden to the complainant. No mention is made of any value in limiting the burden on the accused. Thus, these interventions may be made, on no evidence beyond the accuser’s unsworn statement and before the accused has an opportunity to reply, with their full burden on the accused, even to the extent of taking him out of classes.
How bad will the effects on real students be? Probably not as bad as I have suggested: One hopes that school officials will act with some good sense. But in issuing this letter, the Department of Education has failed to meet that standard.
Here’s a legal analysis by a former lawyer for the department.