the happy conservative

While I was undercover among the capital-C Conservatives, I learned that they find themselves in a very unique position: they’re against the war in Iraq.

Without waxing at length, the position seems to be that:

1. the desire of liberty is not a human trait. It is a cultural oddity of the American only.
2. exporting culture by force cannot be defended unless it is the collateral damage of a just war.

I’m not really qualified to debate this position. I can, however, present a compelling argument for its irrelevance.

Let’s say I’m a member of the 82nd Airborne. I just jumped out of a plane… one thousand - two thousand - three thousand - four thousand - oh #@$%! My chute didn’t open! I better go back and get a different one! I had better elect a different rigger to pack my new chute! In fact, it would be best if I had never jumped out of the plane in the first place!

All of those things may be true, without being even remotely relevant. What matters is that I pull my reserve chute in the four seconds I have before I’m doomed to burn into the ground. I can’t go back to the plane. I can’t go back to the chute shed. I can’t go back to St. Louis and drink beer. The only decision that matters is the one on the margin.

I spent last week with the real conservatives at ISI. They’re much, much smarter than I am.

But I heard a few very disturbing things while I was there, not the least of which was a chemical dislike of the Interstate Highway System. They berate it for its alleged homogenization of American local culture. Never mind that homogenization is a word borne of a questionable parentage, the real problem here is one of marginal ignorance.

Whatever the cost of the interstate system with regard to local culture, and it doesn’t even matter what the cost was, the correct decision is the decision at the margin. What are the costs of the interstate to local culture now? An infinite number of variables have changed in an infinite number of ways since the interstates were created; we can’t go back there. What matters to this discussion is an assessment of the relative value of the interstates today. Note that this approach doesn’t require the assessment of purely mercenary variables. That is, one can be consistent in caring about local culture and still using an economic approach. Tories are burning Hayek as I speak, but economics isn’t just about money and pleasure. Sorry, gents.

Should we shut down the interstates and keep everyone at home on the farm? Absolutely not. Without the interstate, there would be no local culture. What is unique to Tarkio would disappear; we would reduce to subsistence or abandon the town altogether, and it would begin to look like every single other town in America. Cities would feel no pain; airports are a good substitute for the interstate. But the good people of Tarkio, Fairfax, and Rock Port would leave. Local culture would die.

The real evil here runs throughout the Tory rhetoric. I love tradition as well, but the evils of the day are a sunk cost. Decisions are made at the margin. What can we do now to encourage the good society? Whatever it is, it probably stops short of confining most of America to the local county blacktop.

I apologize for being out of the loop; I’ve been doing LSAT practice tests.

I’ve heard people, otherwise rational people, complain that the LSAT measures only one’s ability to take tests, and not one’s probability of success at law school.

I heard the same argument about the ACT when I applied to college four years ago, and about state standardized exams and the No Child Left Behind Act, despised by conservatives and liberals alike. And teachers. And students. And janitors. And administrators.

I’ve written elsewhere about using the ACT as a substitute for state-sponsored standardized tests.

The reasoning behind that prescription lies buried within an essential understanding of the incentive structure of college admissions. Why do colleges use standardized exams? Colleges are ranked on the basis of the exam scores that they admit. But this is only part of the incentive. Included as well are the graduating students’ placements, which are determined simultaneously by their talents as students and the perceived quality of the institution.

A college (or law school) wants to place its students as well as possible. It therefore needs a method of determining the quality of those students, and their probability of success, prior to admittance. GPA is useful, but not terribly. GPA depends on a number of factors that are difficult to observe: student quality, teacher quality, course difficulty, relative grade inflation. Unless you can sift the confounding factors, GPA as a tool for determining student quality is limited at best.

Standardized exams do not remove all of the simultaneity. Exam scores are jointly determined as well, by student quality, level of preparation, memory, and breakfast. But then again, as an educational institution, you don’t really care if the factors are confounded. People who eat breakfast and get up early are going to do better at class, too, on average. And they’re going to place better. People who take the time to prepare will also place better.

There is no way to measure a given student’s probability of success in school. The best a college can hope for is to find a suitable instrument, something that maps onto success in school fairly well. For profit maximizing colleges, the choice is “test-taking ability.”

Washu decided to give Phyllis Schlafly an honorary degree.

Naturally, this raised an uproar. Here she is giving a speech at Depaul, where they’re much more into diversity. We don’t like that kind of thing at WashU, we want everyone to think exactly the same thing.

And here are some excerpts from the Facebook Group (with some 1,100 members):

We view the sexist and anti-intellectual views expressed by Ms. Schlafly as offensive and feel an honorary degree from our university is completely inappropriate. While we support her right to speak her mind we also wish to use our own right to free speech. Regardless of your political convictions, if Ms. Schlafly’s views on the rights of women (especially the status of married women) are completely out of touch with what you believe, then join us in protesting at commencement.
Schlafly claims that intelligent design is unfairly being censored in the classroom. She portrays evolution as a ridiculous theory and evolutionists as backwards people who reject any controversy. These attacks polarize the discussion to a point where the intellectual freedom of both sides is harmed. How is the University’s mission of rational discussion of evidence furthered by the comments of Ms. Schlafly?

Hooray for encouraging diversity on campus. So we’re all supposed to bow to the whims of the feminazis with their brains full of mush?

It seems that Chancellor Wrighton has decided to bow to them. Check out his statement below, sent in an email to all students:

Following the public announcement of the honorary degrees, many in the
University community have called for the University to rescind that offer,
stating that Mrs. Schlafly is associated with some views, opinions and
statements that are inconsistent with the tolerant and inclusive values of
the Washington University community. Personally, I do not endorse her
views or opinions, and in many instances, I strongly disagree with them.

However, after further consultation with members of the University’s Board
of Trustees, the University has concluded that it will fulfill its
commitment to award the degree to Mrs. Schlafly. I apologize for the
anguish this decision has caused to many members of our community.

In bestowing this degree, the University is not endorsing Mrs. Schlafly’s
views or opinions; rather, it is recognizing an alumna of the University
whose life and work have had a broad impact on American life and have
sparked widespread debate and controversies that in many cases have helped
people better formulate and articulate their own views about the values
they hold.

But at least we’re trotting out a member of the diversocrats to award her the degree. This makes everything ok:

At Commencement, Trustee Emerita Margaret Bush Wilson has volunteered to
read the citation to award the degree to Mrs. Schlafly. As the first woman
of color to serve as the national chair of the NAACP, the second woman of
color admitted to practice law in Missouri, and as a prominent St. Louis
civil rights attorney for more than 40 years, she provides a strong voice
for the importance of tolerance and discourse as hallmarks of the
Washington University community.

We’re still trying to get diversity, even if it means making a eunuch of our Chancellor. Thanks for sticking up for diversity, sir.

In the midst of this controversy, I want to affirm my personal and the
University’s institutional commitment to strengthening diversity and
inclusiveness and to improving gender balance. Additionally, I have made a
commitment that the University will review the process for awarding
honorary degrees and will propose appropriate changes.

I’m disgusted by the Chancellor rolling over in the face of a facebook protest by the Buddha of the diversity religion. He doesn’t owe them anything. I don’t owe them anything. And I’m glad that someone at the top of the University had the chutzpah to nominate Mrs. Schlafly for an honorary degree. After all, she graduated WashU back when that meant something.

I watched the whole debate. A couple of things stick out for me:

1. Buckley clearly wins.
2. Chomsky cherry-picks his history.
3. It’s a disinterested act if: “my attempt to help or your attempt to help a particular nation is in order to spare you a great ordeal in the future which will harm you, your family, etc.”
4. “There is an observable distinction by intelligent men between a country that reaches out and interferes which the affairs of another country because it has reason to believe that a failure to do so will result in universal misery and that country that reaches out and interferes with another country because it wants to establish Coca-Cola plants and Chase National Banks and the like.”
5. “A soldier can be as useful as a bushel of wheat.”

This is all very relevant for today’s war debate. Do you believe that without American interference, the situation in Iraq would have led to universal misery?
Part I:

Part II:

Tonight I’m feeling frisky, and I’m going to say something inflammatory and dreadfully unpopular.

We need fewer need-based scholarships. In fact, we need to do away with need-based aid. All of it.

Here’s why:

In life, you’re paid for two things: intellect and effort. Effort will get you to one hundred thousand dollars. Brains make you a millionaire.

Most people pay for college on their own; usually by taking out loans with the expectation that the loans will be repaid with the income gains that accrue from the degree. If I buy a tractor, I do so with a ration belief that the tractor will make at least enough money to cover the opportunity cost of the capital. The same logic applies with loans for school. Good risks should get better rates, because they can be expected to put forth the requisite effort to recoup the tuition cost with interest.

Bad risks should pay higher rates, to discourage them from over investing in tractors, or years of college.

The current system fails in two ways:

1. It makes it cheaper to go to college. This leads people to overinvest in education, leaving them with too much education and saddling them with loans they will never repay. In effect, by giving them cheaper college we’re setting them up for failure. Without the subsidy, they would  not choose college. They do not see the benefit; they’re probably right. Who is the government to disagree?
2. People who cannot acquire loans are bad risks for a reason. Usually, it’s too little effort. If there is a positive externality associated with a college education (after all, that is why we subsidize them, right?), then isn’t there a negative spillover associated with a bunch of lazy people who rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and then fail to recoup the cost of the degree?

Subsidies change incentives. By giving people an incentive to go to school, we’re pushing them in a direction they wouldn’t go otherwise. If they thought it was worth it, they’d pay the loan like most students do. If it’s not worth it, we’re setting them up for failure.

Down with need-based aid. Too many people go to college.

Check out the article here. Jack Cafferty asks the question of the hour.

And check out The American this month for an ariticle about happiness and capitalism.

Many of the commenters mentioned that economic success makes you happy, but Arthur C. Brooks notes that people report being no happier now on average than they did in 1973, even though real income has gone up by fifty percent.

So no fair blaming the conservative bliss on the fact that “they all have money.”

I hate it when teachers complain about not getting paid enough. Do you hear the guy at the 7-11 complain about his pay? How about the folks at Hardee’s? Hy-Vee?

Nope. And all these people get paid a lot less than teachers for working many, many more hours.

Teachers love to ask for more pay. It’s for the children, they say. Here’s what happens if you give more money to the schools:

My high school has 120-ish kids, thirty per class. I never actually took chemistry because we didn’t have a chem teacher. Still don’t. We had one AP class for one year; now we have none. We watched Monty Python and ran to Casey’s for donuts in Spanish II.

But now we have a teacher for ISS. That’s in-school-suspension, where kids sit and think about all the bad things they’ve done, and repent. Apparently, we have the money to pay someone forty grand a year to watch the trouble makers. In his off time, he’s going to help children in the weightroom and coach football.

Wait a minute…..we just hired a football coach. We took the money, given ostensibly for the purpose of actually teaching children something, and spent it on a football coach. Our fifth since I was a freshman in high school seven years ago.

Regardless of the fact that Vince Lombardi couldn’t make those seventeen 150 lb teenagers win three games, the decision is flawed. High school is about learning. I have nothing against high school sports; I hold thirteen varsity letters. And I’m the only kid out of thirty in my high school class who gets paid to work out - and I get paid by the Army. Other things matter too, however. Like chemistry. And calculus. And learning to read, something that a fair number of my classmates probably still do only with great difficulty.

Funding for schools is fine, but it’s badly allocated and badly monitored. When my dad was in school, the high school had six National Merit Semifinalists. Now we don’t even take the test anymore. If you’ve got money for a coach to sit around and listen to Back in Black all day, why can’t we spend some of that on a foreign language teacher? How about a science teacher? Maybe somebody who’s graduated college with a degree in the subject they’re allegedly teaching?

But thank goodness we’re the only public school in the nation to have a football coach who doesn’t teach a class.  

If you’re just searching around, fighting vainly the old ennui, take a look at the best conservative blogs on the planet. They’ve been no end of help in getting me started here. Kindred spirits all.

Naturally, we’re changing the world here.

I see these bumper stickers fairly often around WashU. Odd, since this is a place that simply despises religion.

But I’ve got a few problems with these things.

First of all, I can’t remember the last time a Christian saddled up, guns blazing, and rode into the local Chabad and laid waste to all within because Jesus told him to. Come to think of it, it’s been awhile since a Jew tossed a grenade into a Presbyterian church on account of the teachings of Moses.

Even hippies manage to keep themselves stoned to peacefulness. Good for them.

Did I forget anyone? Oh wait, there’s one more up there.

But the diversity crowd is missing on another, more subtle point here. Killing people for your faith is wrong, no doubt about it. And no one is free from that accusation (although lots of us are free from it in the last hundred years.) But just because murder in the name of religion is wrong doesn’t mean that religions are all the same.

Those who forsake organized religion for the altar of diversity argue for peace from the wrong position. For them, religion-based war is stupid because all religions are equally unreasonable. I get this from professors and students all the time. Why can’t we all just get along?

We all can’t get along because, for the vast majority of people, each religion was not created equally. After all, if you don’t think yours is the best, why wouldn’t you change? If they were all the same, people would be indifferent. I’d say this isn’t the case for most religious people (at least it isn’t for me.)

Can we coexist? Nope. Why not? Because - surprise - most religious people actually prefer their religion. It answers their questions and fits their internal compass. If I don’t think Christianity has the right answers, I’d be irrational if I didn’t start to look around.

But I don’t kill Jews or Muslims. Preference doesn’t excuse killing in the name of your favorite diety. Why not? Because what would your diety create you to kill others, whom he also created? I would not presume to know the mind of God, but if my memory serves me correctly, it’s usually a pretty big deal when he has one of his own killed.

If you believe in a Creator of any sort (which most religious people do) then you have real issues justifying murder.

I’m not sure what keeps atheists from killing people they don’t like. Maybe they should coexist.

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