Breakfast At Tiffany's

Someone named Tiffany who goes to a private academy in Dallas sent me some questions about the Libertarian Party Of Texas for a school project. 
Since I'm feeling lazy this morning, I'm letting it double as today's blog post.  Thought it might shed a little light on how we work.  The rant at the end has almost been finessed into a liturgy.   

Tiffany,


I hope these answers are satisfactory. Let me know if you need any details.

-Does the Libertarian Party of Texas's platform differ from the national party’s platform?

The platforms occasionally differ in degree or in emphasis, but seldom in principle. There are two issues for which the core libertarian philosophy doesn’t provide easy answers. Abortion (two possibly conflicting sets of rights), and immigration in the context of a welfare state.

One of the best things about being a Libertarian is that our core platform really doesn’t change, whereas the Democrats and Republicans have swapped or otherwise changed their positions on several issues over the last 50 years.

-What do you do within the State branch?

In addition to acting as Tarrant County Chair, I serve on a committee called SLEC. This is the State Libertarian Executive Committee. Our core responsibilities are to ensure that we have ballot access, that the message of Liberty is spread throughout the state, and to oversee the state conventions every two years. There are several committees within that group, and I currently chair the Compliance committee. We ensure that all actions taken by the county groups and SLEC are done according to the by-laws, and can withstand any legal challenges.

-What is the Libertarian Party of Texas's main job/function?

The purpose of the Libertarian Party of Texas is to win elections.

-How does Libertarian Party of Texas work with the national Libertarian party?

We help coordinate and host events for presidential candidates. Our most recent presidential candidate, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, was very well-received in Texas, BTW.

We also elect and send delegates from Texas to the national conventions, where they select our presidential and veep candidates.

-Which candidates is the Libertarian Party of Texas currently supporting and which elections are you all currently preparing for?

All of the “off-year” elections are non-partisan. But because of his pro-liberty stance, we’re encouraging people to support Daniel Wood, who is running for Arlington City Council. Sybil Lane is running for the school board in Crowley and she seems to have some strong libertarian support. We’re also making phone calls for John Basham, Tim Nold, and Mary Kelleher, three of the candidates for Fort Worth Water Board. These local elections are extremely important to us, even though no one runs under a Libertarian Party banner. It’s a shame that so few people vote in them, because the local races are often more likely to have a direct impact on the citizens than the national contests do.

-How much money does the Libertarian Party of Texas raise for “party activities”? How much money do they raise for specific candidates?

Fundraising is often a struggle for us. The Big Two fund their campaigns by blatantly selling exemptions to the tax, import, and tariff codes. It’s difficult to raise large amounts of money by promising to merely leave you (and your competitors) alone.

Fundraising for individual candidates has almost become a theological dispute for us, with some libertarians insisting that the national, state, and local parties not get into the business of “picking winners and losers”, and others wanting to put 100% of our limited resources into just a few competitive races in hopes of winning more elections.  At this point, the candidates are supported by their own fundraising events, with administrative and some logistical support from the county and state operations. 

-On what does the Libertarian Party of Texas spend most of their money?

Publicity for the party, administration, educational events and conventions.

-What are two recent headlines/events with which the Libertarian Party of Texas associated?

The Tarrant County Libertarian Party recently hosted a presidential candidates debate featuring the six Libertarians vying for the LP presidential nomination. We also hosted a gun rights/2nd amendment debate at TCU this past weekend.

The state party recently hosted an activists forum about dealing with the Texas Legislature. Speakers from NORML, the ACLU, a gun group, a transportation lobby and others all gave their take on how to lobby the legislature, where they’ve succeeded and where they’ve failed. Since this is an off-year for elections, the county organizations have been more active and visible than the state level operation.

-Does the Libertarian Party of Texas face any obstacles?

The biggest obstacle we face is something called the “wasted vote fallacy”. This is the belief that unless you vote for a Democrat or Republican, your vote is wasted.

Please remember that your share of the national debt is $50,000.00, and even more if you intend to grow up and be a net taxpayer to the federal government.

Your share of the government’s unfunded liabilities is more than $350,000.00

The Democrats and Republicans got you this far into debt by working together, as a team, in a bi-partisan manner.

They are borrowing billions of dollars from China, to protect the South Pacific from…..China.

We have enough people in our military (45% of the world’s military spending) to put a soldier along every 20 feet of the borders of the United States.

According to author Michelle Alexander, Barack Obama now has more black men confined in steel cages (mostly for owning or selling a weed) than The Confederate States Of America did prior to the start of the Civil War. One million government jobs could be eliminated if we were to end the Drug War (which is why so many government employees support the Drug War.)

The Federal Reserve printing press on Blue Mound Road in Fort Worth is pumping an additional 65 billion dollars a month into the nation. You’ll soon see prices rising because of this.

The only “wasted” vote is a vote to maintain this disaster.

Hope this helps!!

Allen Patterson

Tarrant County Libertarian Party Chair

Rahm Emanuel supporters go on strike against.....Rahm Emanuel

You may have read or heard that most of Chicago's public school teachers have walked out.  They're on strike. 

The average Chicago family earns $47,000.00 per year.  The average striking teacher makes $76,000.00 and has an incredible pension.  Forget about that.  You see, the struggling Chicago families paying for this gaggle of union ineptitude are the equivalent of wealthy coal barons, selfishly eating lobster and smoking cigars while their ragtime bands play into the night.  The striking teachers are the Molly Maguires, wearing fertlizer sack shirts, and boiling rocks to make soup.  That's the dominant media narrative today, anyway. 

79% of Chicago 8th graders aren't proficient at reading.  Here's something from a 7th grade teacher, perhaps one of the ones responsible for the 79% failure: 

Many in the peaceful crowd said they were surprised at how many teachers showed up to rally.


"This is an amazing display of democracy," said Rick Sawicki, a 7th grade teacher at Evergreen Middle School. "It is a wonderful lesson for children and adults alike. I'm honored that we are all sticking together. We all want what is fair. We want to make sure everyone is treated fairly, just like I teach my children."

You might be wondering about the impact this is having on Rahm Emanuel, Chicago's new Democrat mayor.  Is Rahm having to stay home to take care of his three kids until their school reopens? 

Hell no.  Rahm Emanuel doesn't trust public education.  Rahm Emanuel would no more send his kids to a Chicago public school than he would send them to a public housing crack den.  You'll catch the Obama's sending their kids to a D.C. public school first. 

"Mayor Rahm Emanuel has decided to send his three children to the University of Chicago Lab Schools rather than put them in the financially strapped Chicago Public Schools he’s trying desperately to reform," the Chicago Sun-Times reported last year.  
A phone call to the Lab Schools confirmed that it remains open. It is, after all, a private institution--and strikes are taking place in public schools.

The director's office, however, was not yet able immediately to confirm whether Emanuel's three children were in attendance today. (UPDATE: The school called back to say it wouldn't comment.) Emanuel's office did not respond to a request for comment

The Lab Schools are an expensive and elite Chicago institution. The website of the school high details the annual cost:

Good God in heaven !!  This almost puts Texas A and M into perspective. 

According to the school's website, it has a "rich academic and extracurricular offerings, [a] distinct approach to education, [a] diverse student body, and [a] unique relationship to the University of Chicago."

Hell yes, it has a unique relationship to the University of Chicago.  I bet most of the faculty send their kids there. 

Anyway, for those of us who enjoy watching people reap what they've sown, this is a delicious moment.  Does Emanuel defend the Teachers Union, the one that has provided him and The Teleprompter Jesus so many foot soldiers and donations through the years? 

Is he going to shaft those families making 47K in favor of those two-teacher families who make up the top 6% of incomes in the nation? 

I bet he does. 

Sheesh.  We need education vouchers.  Now. 

Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party candidate for president, supports the idea of education vouchers..  We should all have options, just like the Emanuels and the Obamas. 

An apology for posting inaccurate information

I've probably posted this (inaccurate) chart a dozen times, and regret doing so. 
It shows public education spending going through the roof, while test scores remain flat. 

The cost of public education has indeed increased as shown. 
My mistake was in assuming that the miserable flatlined test scores were accurate.
Here's why I was wrong:

In the Atlanta Public School system, the administration held "cheating parties", in which they met at a teacher's home to change test scores. 

A similar thing happened in Pontiac, Michigan. 

Here's more on the Atlanta mess:

Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.

Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.
Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.

....For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue.

“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.
The voluminous report names 178 educators, including 38 principals, as participants in cheating. More than 80 confessed. The investigators said they confirmed cheating in 44 of 56 schools they examined.

So.   I humbly repent of publishing that chart so many times.
The chart is inaccurate. 
Test scores have not remained flat despite the spending increases.  If Michigan and Georgia are any indication of what's going on in government schools, test scores have declined. 

My bad. 

Go here to read an outraged editorial about the pro-choice movement that wants to privatize the public schools and give students and parents some other options. 

Tater Red's

One tenth of the survivors of my high school graduating class (North Sunflower Academy, 1979) had a reunion in Memphis during Thanksgiving. 
That means there were three of us. 
One of the high points was a visit to Tater Red's Lucky Mojos and Voodoo Healings on Beale Street. 

It turns out that Tater Red is none other than Leo Allred, another graduate of North Sunflower Academy.  Leo was two or three grades ahead of us at NSA.   

That's Leo on the left, then my friend Tricia's popular dress with Tricia inside it, then me, and my friend Henry is on the right.  Those are autographed drum heads on the ceiling.  Posters and autographed Blues/Rock memorabilia are on the back wall.  The aura coming off my forehead is not a sign of balding, but of my entry into Blues-Rock Geek Heaven. 

Tater Red's has now joined John Evans' Lemuria Books as one of my favorite places in the South.  Leo sells a unique assortment of T-shirts, books, stickers, guitar picks, autographed memorabilia, bizarre Mojo spells, curses, amulets, icons and posters and just...stuff. 
Imagine the polar opposite of a generic suburban Starbucks, Best Buy, or Target. 

Do you need a Mojo Hand?  Leo has them for sale. 

How about an authentic Voodoo doll?  Tater Red's is the only place to go. 

If you can't imagine why anyone would want a Mojo Hand or Voodoo paraphernalia, just listen to Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Lightnin' Hopkins for 30 years and get back to me. 

Do you need an Aquarian Tarot Deck, one that you've sought for years, but have never seen for sale in Dallas/Fort Worth?  And do you want to purchase it at a 33% North Sunflower Academy Graduate Discount?   Leo is your man. 

Hey, very few people still believe in any of this stuff.  But you're from the Mississippi Delta, you also know that you can't be too careful.... 

....and if you grew up on a Mississippi farm that was exactly halfway between Highway 61 (as in Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited") and Highway 49 (as in Howlin' Wolf's "Highway 49" - "I'm gonna get up in the morning, hit the Highway 49"), it's not every day that you'll get a chance at a Photo Op like this one. 

You can hit this link to read a glowing tribute to Leo, his love of music, his friendship with Stevie Ray Vaughan, and everything else that's great about Leo Allred's wonderful patch of Beale Street real estate in Memphis, Tennessee.  This was written by Robert Tooms of AmeriBlues News and it just might be the best tribute to a NSA graduate ever written.  Here's an excerpt:

This paragraph by Robert Tooms of AmeriBlues News turns out to be copyright protected, Dang it.  Therefore I can't copy and paste it, and I'm not about to re-type the whole thing.  Trust me.  Hit that link.  Read some more about Leo and his store.  Then go to Memphis.  Go into Leo's store, fully prepared to be amazed.  Note to Robert Tooms: turn off the copyright protection on your website, and more people will spread your writing around.

Sorry to put you through all of that.  Hope you'll hit that link anyway.  It's good stuff with great (copyright protected) pictures.

Leo, it was great seeing you again.  You growed up good ! *

The pics of Tater Red's merchandise came from the stores's website.  The picture of the store exterior came from Flickr. 
* The "You growed up good !" quote was originally directed from Leo toward Tricia's red dress.

Why I am a Libertarian, part 4, Ruby Sue Issa edition ! ! !

Because of reconnecting with old friends on Facebook, I've been doing a series of posts about what makes someone go from political near-apathy to rabid Libertarian.  You can hit the "Why I'm A Libertarian" label down below if you want to see the others. 

From the 3rd grade to the 12th, I was educated in a small private school in north Mississippi called North Sunflower Academy.  At NSA, generations of students learned history and social studies from a lady named Ruby Sue Issa. 

By the time the class of '79 came along, Mrs. Issa had been at it for decades.  She had a list of stories and anecdotes that she used to illustrate the topic of the day.  Most of them had been in circulation for a while, and for the most part we were all too cool to pay much attention.  But some of it, against all odds, sunk in.  Or maybe it sank in.  Sunk? Sank?  Should've paid more attention in English.  I have no idea which one is the past tense.  Mrs. DuBard, please advise.... 

I remember Mrs. Issa talking about the U.S. Constitution, and the issue of illegal search and seizure.  One of Mrs. Issa's stories had the Mississippi Highway Patrol pulling someone over for speeding, and they pumped his stomach because they thought he ingested a baggie of some sort.  Mrs. Issa was outraged. 

Our class, however, didn't understand the outrage.  Even those who had "illegal smiles" knew, just knew that if you were carrying weed or anything else, that's just the risk you take.  Why, if the Highway Patrol can't pump your stomach, how are they supposed to do their jobs?  Plus, regardless of lifestyle choices, we we knew that all badness must be punished by any means necessary. 

But Mrs. Issa planted a seed that day, and it grew into this:  I belong to me, and you belong to you.  I own myself, you own yourself.  We don't belong to King George III, George Washington, George Bush, Barack Obama, or The Mississippi Highway Patrol.  This is mine, dang it.  Keep your grubby little hands off of it.

She did her best to teach us about the Constitution and how it shouldn't be abused, even if intentions were good.  She saw history as a long, long story that kept looping around and repeating itself.  A story where people kept making the same types of mistakes over and over again.  The purpose of the Constitution was to be sure that we avoided those mistakes in the future, regardless of the "emergency". 

Before Mrs. Issa started teaching me, I used to wish that I had grown up in a place where history happened.  Somewhere near Civil War battlefields, or New York City, or anywhere except the Mississippi Delta. 

Mrs. Issa told us about what it was like when her husband's cafe in Ruleville was first integrated, and what a big change that was for her.  She told us about the sit-ins and the Freedom Riders.  This was in a segregationist academy, and Mrs. Issa was a product of her time and place, just like all of us were (and still are) regarding race, but I think she kinda enjoyed holding up contradictions between our supposed ideals and our actions.

Bob Fisher and I both remember the time she told us that "All barbarian invasions come from....The North."
 
She told us (multiple times) about Bob Dylan coming to Greenwood in 1963, and playing "Only A Pawn In Their Game" at a Civil Rights rally.  We didn't get it.    By 1978/1979, Bob Dylan was as dated as Bing Crosby, and by the standards of the time, Bob Dylan couldn't sing.  (I now own every non-bootleg Bob Dylan has ever recorded, BTW.)

But because of Mrs. Issa, it eventually dawned on me that I was growing up in a place where important things were happening.  I was in The Most Southern Place On Earth, the Ground Zero of our biggest societal change since the Civil War.  I started paying attention to the news, and seeing U.S. history as a story of our progress toward liberty - first for white landowners, then for white men, then for black men, then for women, then for gays, lesbians, people who want to smoke weed, people who don't want to buy health insurance, people who own 200 guns, or guys who want to put on womens' clothing and walk around the mall. 

I own me, you own you.  If it doesn't harm you, it's none of your business. 

So it has taken me about 30 years to figure it out and to acknowledge it.  Thank you, Mrs. Issa.  Some of us really were paying attention.  It sunk in.  Or sank in. 

Mrs. Issa's picture came from Duff Dorrough's Facebook page.  One other thing....Mrs. Issa was a huge fan of Teddy Roosevelt.  Here's a picture of President Roosevelt riding a swimming moose, just in case you ever need one. 

The New Orleans School Choice Revolution

Now, if only a hurricane would hit Washington D.C.
From Reason magazine:

Dallas Independent School District suffering from "Black Flight"

A recent piece in the Dallas Morning News has created a bit o' controversy. 
Remember the "white flight" of the 1970's and 80's, when white families left the cities by the dumpster-load, creating boomtowns out of sleepy little hamlets like Aledo, Colleyville, Weatherford, etc.? 
Many of these refugees were accused of being racists. 
Well, it ain't necessarily so. 

The Dallas Independent School District is now experiencing "black flight". 

The number of black children attending DISD schools has reached its lowest point since 1965.

I repeat....

The number of black children attending DISD schools has reached its lowest point since 1965.

Where are they going?  Charter schools.  Private academies.  And, of course, the suburbs. 

Today, about 41,000 black students attend DISD schools. They make up 26 percent of the district compared with 106,000 Hispanic children, or 68 percent. White students are 5 percent of the district.

Wow.  What could be going wrong?  Here are a couple of charts from The Cato Institute.  This one shows enrollment from 1970 to 2010, as compared to school employees from 1970 to 2010.

Hey, it takes a lot of employees to run off that many customers. 

Here's another one showing the spending per student vs the reading, math, and science scores:

Is there anyone, anyone at all, who can justify keeping this system going instead of privatizing the whole thing?  Or at least offering a voucher system for those who can't afford to get out? 

Does the United States really need another Aledo or Colleyville? 

Democrats Resegregate the Washington D.C. School System

Sometimes Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit pulls together such an excellent collection of links and commentary, all I can do is scrape 'em and encourage you to go to his site every day.

Here's what he accumulated on the D.C. School Voucher Program, one of the very few federal programs that Obama doesn't like:

KILLING THE D.C. SCHOOL VOUCHER PROGRAM: Because protecting bureaucrats’ rice bowls is more important than, you know, actually educating.

UPDATE: “Democrats Resegregate DC School System.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:

I keep thinking -hard- about what an amazing example the DC Voucher program could be… if it was really adopted as a cause celebre on the right. Not just as a punchline, but as a going concern.

There just aren’t that many recipients, and there’s a mighty strong overlap in DC between “underprivileged” and “permanent Democrat voters.” And these identical voters are personally steamed. They can recognize being completely jobbed. If there’s one spot to push to shatter this particular unholy alliance, it is precisely this spot.

Think of it as a reverse-ACORN. Scholarships are strictly need based – not race based. An endowment focused on K-12 instead of higher education.

I’m not quite sure the Glenn Reynolds DC Scholarship Fund has quite enough panache

But just think of the same idea with different marquee players:

The Ronald Reagan Scholarship Fund.

The Rush Limbaugh Scholarship Fund.

The Sarah Palin Scholarship fund.

Note: I would like to add the Milton Friedman School Voucher fund, since Friedman was one of the first in the U.S. to advocate this type of program. Since this is one of the few areas where I could possibly get behind a racial quota system, if anyone wants to establish a minority scholarship in my name, please call it the Whited For Black And Brown Education Fund. And if you think that's racist, just look at some of the eugenics-inspired requirements for other minority set-asides.

Back to Instapundit. Sorry for the digression.

What do you think? Reach out to these folks and raise some money? (More here). Though that bit about lacking panache kinda hurts . . . .

UPDATE: Arnold Kling likes the idea. “The conflict between voluntary charity and progressive tax-funded spending is a very interesting potential battleground. Progressives want to shift away from charitable giving and toward taxes, while libertarians (or civil societarians) ought to be aiming for the reverse.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Heather Benes writes: “I suggest a Thomas Sowell/Walter E. Williams scholarship fund for those D.C. kids.”

MORE: Reader Catherine Elkins writes:

I love this idea and wish it had been an option when doing my last minute year-end contributions last night! If you and/or others who may write you can get anything like this set up, I look forward to seeing links here to contribute. My guess is, the sooner it can be done, the better, so that some of these families can plan for the next school year with an idea of funds/funding available.

I’d offer to help but I don’t know the first thing about setting up scholarship funds. I’ll contribute, though!

Anybody know anything about setting up scholarship funds?

Posted at 9:40 pm by Glenn Reynolds

Stephen Smith on The Public Option

Go to Stephen Smith's "A Beginner's Guide To Freedom", for the best thing ever written on The Public Option.

The Hypocrisy Of Barack And Michelle Obama

Here's Reason magazine, on the sheer hypocrisy of Barack and Michelle Obama.

In a truly civilized society, leaving a son or daughter in the Washington D.C. public schools would qualify as a form of child abuse.
The parents would be arrested.

Barack and Michelle Obama are sending their daughters, Sasha and Malia, to Sidwell friends, an elite private D.C. school.
He has supported the teachers' unions in ending a popular voucher problem that allowed 1,700 low income students to do the same thing at a little more than half the amount being spent per student in the public school system ! ! !



When the Clintons sent Chelsea to a private school, I remember one of their spokesmuppets sniffing that "It was a personal choice".

Here's a subject for further research: How far down the chain in the Obamessiah's Department Of Education does one have to go before finding an administrator who has kids in the D.C. public schools?

A Consensus on the Kimmel Center student takeover at NYU, with notes on Corporate Water

This is the saddest thing I've ever seen.
It's sadder than "Dog Day Afternoon". It's more depressing than "Midnight Cowboy".
This is sad.
Just wanted to warn you.
A group of NYU students, no doubt intoxicated with the romantic 1960's campus takeovers, took over their student center cafeteria. After a few hours, they realized they'd forgotten to take over a toilet.
Potty breaks were eventually negotiated (through non-violent confrontation).
My God in heaven, this is sad.

They're taking these kids, pumping them full of theoretical bullshit, teaching them how to sprinkle a few Smart Words into every sentence, and then releasing them, untethered, into the Post-Marxist Mist, where they flounder about trying to define the hierarchy in their consensus space. (You'll understand that sentence later on. I promise.)

The video begins with some campus official looking over the barricades and asking the students for some identification.

:27 Idiot: "We're using Democratic Process here; I don't know if you guys understand that....We're using consensus here, and the way that works is they need to come back and report to us what the disciplinary measure are....We need to collectively decide how to proceed."

This was in response to the cops asking for their student I.D.'s. It gets better.

1:22 Idiot: "YOU MAY NOT COME IN HERE ! THIS IS STUDENTS' FREE SPACE ! EXCUSE ME !"

The cameraman is addressing a large security officer who has had to climb over an improvised barricade, and who is not amused. He doesn't seem to have much patience for spoiled little documentarians whose parents pay $48,000.00 a year in tuition, only to have Junior take over the Food Court as a Poli-Sci project. He doesn't seem amused at all. Plus, it's a privately owned school, BTW.

1:30 Idiot, in a panic: "YOU MAY NOT USE BRUTALITY HERE ! YOU ARE ON CAMERA ! DO NOT USE BRUTALITY !"

I believe the Spielberg wannabe might have glimpsed a taser at that point.

1:50 Our heroic cameraman briefly breaks character when he spots a competing cinematographer. He goes from whiny little consensus builder to "Dude ! I'm getting the same footage !"

2:17 Idiot: "Are they armed? Do they have tasers? As long as they don't have Devices Of Force, okay."

I don't think anyone was needing your approval, buddy.... But if they'd had Devices Of Force, this would be a much shorter video. And the world would've applauded the Force Device Wielders for ending it.

2:35 Idiot addressing his Trustafarian troops: "We have to be civil, let's be civil, this is civil disobedience...."

3:00 to 3:30 The University's designated Flak Catcher has to explain that this is not a negotiation. This is private property, and you will show us your school I.D.'s.

In the words of one YouTube commenter: What... what exactly are they supposed to be doing? I've taken part in many protests myself, but this is the first time I've ever been rooting for The Man. What a pathetic display of entitlement and... well, pissiness.

3:40 Idiot: "We need to use a consensus process to move forward. This is directly democratic, okay?"

At this point, all decent god-fearing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Scientologists and Seventh Day Adventists want to crawl through their computer screens and LET THE STRANGLING BEGIN.

3:55 Cop: "There is no cooperation. You guys need to leave."
Idiot: "We need to democratically decide on that."

4:10 Idiot: "We would like to democratically decide in a consensus area...."

More confusion while Idiot tries to get his troops rallied into a consensus area.

5:10 Idiot: "Who is the hierarchy here? Like, who is the top...."

5:15 "Guys, focus on consensus here, we have 10 minutes....we need to look at the situation here, the hierarchy here, the power relationship here, we need to decide if we're going to cooperate with their demands by force, okay? They're using force."

(Note to cameraman: You are freakin' surrounded by cops. Some are campus cops, and outside the building are the NYPD cops. And they don't like you. That is the power structure.)

5:40 Screaming erupts from stage right. One of the young ladies in a PLO scarf accuses the cops of touching her, and perhaps trying to throw her off the balcony. She's screaming "Don't touch me !" They don't make revolutionaries like they used to.

Every one of these police officers deserves the Congressional Medal Of Honor. For restraint. Normal humans would've gone Medieval on these people.

5:55 Idiot: "Ryan, Ryan ! ! ! WE'RE USING CONSENSUS ON HOW TO PROCEED ! ! WE HAVE 10 MINUTES TO DECIDE WHETHER TO COOPERATE WITH THEIR DEMANDS TO PROVIDE NYU I.D. !"

I guess this is as good a time as any to discuss their demands. There were 13 of them. The first one was the most self-serving (amnesty for all protesters, of course). The funniest one is that the school library should be open to the general public. The most contradictory? They want to rebuild the University of Gaza, provide scholarships for 13 Palestinian students, and (ahem) lock in tuition fees at a fixed rate. Nothing was said about a free pony.

6:30 Idiot: "We have to decide....can we have some space where we can discuss in private? We can take this space and discuss what's going on and....We need to have a consensus ! Freddy ! Freddy ! We're going to decide without you !"

I think Freddy might have decided to abandon censensus-building principles, and embrace a more libertarian world view in a more remote space.

7:20 Idiot: "We can negotiate in private. We're going to talk in private. We use consensus process, right? We're going to use this space to privately discuss....They're not going to let us have four of our people to consensus.... " (One glorious shot of a kid with dreadlocks, giving up, and picking up his skateboard to go home.)

7:35 Idiot" "We're going to use this space to privately discuss...."
Cop: "No, stay over here, please."
Idiot: "Well, you'll have to use earmuffs. Ok, just pretend you can't hear us."

Get ready for my second-most favorite line of dialogue. Let me set the stage. Rome is burning. There are barbarians at the gates. And what does our Che Guevara wannabe have to say?

7:50 Idiot: "Okay, who wants to be facilitator? Who wants to facilitate at this point? I have markers."

At the 8:00 mark, our cameraman cuts away to the backpacks. He's apparently looking for contraband, maps of the Pentagon, incriminating evidence, the weapons stash, weed, or anything else that the authorities could use to force the consensus-builders to miss The Big Game or Serve Detention in Study Hall.
He finds iPods, MacBooks, various laptops, and he's using a nice video camera. Got that? He shows iPods and Mac computers on his video. iPods. Macs.

8:30 Idiot: "Water bottles. I don't think they want (our) water bottles. I bet they drink Corporate Water."

The End. Except for....

9:22 Idiot: "I guess we're converging back into this space...."

Michelle Obama on 60 Minutes, regarding the D.C. Public Schools

Where will Malia and Sasha go to school, part 2....

60 Minutes: Would you seriously consider sending the girls to public school?

Michelle Obama: You know, we're still in the process of figuring out that transition, and what we have asked people to understand is that the decision that we make will be based on the best interest of the girls. We haven't made that decision yet, you know, we want that to be a personal process, and people have been really good about respecting that.

The Whited Sepulchre: Almost everyone wishes that they could select their school based on their childrens' best interest. They can't make that decision yet, you know, because the government insists on assigning kids to various schools based on residential zip code. Everyone wants their school choice to be a personal process, especially since they're taxed to pay for schools.
Therefore, Mrs. Obama, some of us have difficulty accepting your rationalization for not putting your kids in the Washington D.C. Gladiator Training Facility.

If the government absolutely has to be involved in education, the government should do the decent thing and issue tuition vouchers for the school that the family chooses. We don't need any more White Flight Suburbs. We don't need to keep funding bad schools that don't work.

On a related note, here's a suggestion for politicians who oppose socialized medicine: Insist that public medical care be provided based on residential zip code, just like public education. Nobody in his right mind would vote for it.

Vouchers would go a long, long way toward solving the education problem.
And The Hypocrisy Watch continues....

On an unrelated note, those are some cute little girls. It's going to be good to have some children (with a new dog) in the White House. Just trying to find an upside....

Where Will Malia And Sasha Obama Go To School?

The Obama kids will soon be going to a new school.

Unless their parents are rich, they will have to go to the Washington D.C. public schools, which are among the worst-performing in the nation.

Fortunately, the Obamas are very rich. Barack has written multiple best-sellers and Michelle made $121,000 as V.P. Of External Affairs at a hospital. As soon as Barack was elected senator, Michelle's salary was re-evaluated, re-assessed, reconfigured, deemed totally inadequate for a person of her obvious skills, and bumped up to $316,000. (It had nothing to do with Barack winning a Senate seat.)

But I digress. The Obama children currently attend a private school in Chicago.

Jimmy Carter was the last president to put an actual living, breathing child into the Washington D.C. public schools. Bill and Hillary announced early on that Chelsea would be attending the Sidwell Friends School, and were denounced in some quarters for not following Jimmy's lead in supporting the local public school system. Here's an excerpt from a 1992 article in the Washington Monthly:

The Gores send their children to private school. So do the Quayles. So does Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander. In fact, none of the 67 top education policymakers in the Bush (Sr.) administration sends his or her kids to D.C. public schools. Instead, the Clintons will be hearing well-deserved praise of the academics at the National Cathedral School, of the sincere service ethics of Quaker philosophy at Sidwell Friends School, of the respect for individualism at Georgetown Day School, among others.

Nobody held this private school decision against the Clintons for very long, since Carter sending his daughter to the public schools was considered the act of a madman.
But we're paying for these schools, aren't we?
The question is, why?
And if the overwhelming majority of high ranking Washingtonians in government have abandoned the public schools, why not privatize all of them, give D.C. residents a voucher (for about half of what the schools currently cost per pupil) and end the charade?

Here's the Washington Post on the cost per pupil in the D.C. schools....We're often told that public schools are underfunded. In the District, the spending figure cited most commonly is $8,322 per child, but total spending is close to $25,000 per child -- on par with tuition at Sidwell Friends, the private school Chelsea Clinton attended in the 1990s.

$25,000 per child. Texas Freakin' A&M doesn't cost that much for tuition, room, board, other food, books, snacks, fees, parking, and tickets to football games to watch the Aggies lose.

Here's Nick Gillespie at Reason magazine, generally the source of all things good and holy:

Mother Jones has a letter from a Washington, D.C. resident pleading with President-Elect Barack Obama that he "seriously consider sending your kids to DC public schools—and not a charter school, either, but a full-on traditional neighborhood public school."

Stephanie Mencimer notes in passing (and with strange forgiveness) that Obama's kids attend private school in Chicago, and she grants that D.C.'s public schools are "crappy" and complains about lack of resources without mentioning that the schools spend more money per pupil than just about anywhere else in the country. "I understand," she writes, "that choosing a school is fraught with anxiety and it's the most private of decisions."

In an update, she says:
At Barack Obama's first press conference as president-elect, Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet asked whether Obama would be sending his children to private or public schools in Washington. He replied that no decision has yet been made and that he and Michelle would be "scouting out schools."

More here. Which is another way of saying, Hello Sidwell Friends! or one of the other ultra-exclusive and ultra-expensive D.C.-area private schools.

Which is to say that Obama (as he has already demonstrated via his own kids) is in favor of school choice, at least when it comes to his family (he has said a variety of phoney-baloney platitudes about not "walking away" from public schools and creating more charters, etc.)

With that in mind, and as a parent with two kids in public schools, I'd like to write a letter to Obama too:

I understand that choosing a school is fraught with anxiety and it's the most private of decisions. Please extend and expand the same educational choice you and your family exercise with ease by giving school-age children more and better options. Making every school voluntary by giving vouchers equal to the current average spending per pupil that can be cashed at any educational institution you would be willing to send your own kids to.

This is, of course, not going to happen. Indeed, look for the Obama administration to follow in the footsteps of the Bush administration and further centralize and federalize control of the K-12 system. In fact, Obama has spoken repeatedly about the need for universal, taxpayer-funded preschool, which will have the added bonus of straitjacketing a thriving and decentralized and choice-driven industry.

I'm incredibly conflicted on this subject. Many hardcore Libertarians believe that there's no legit reason for the government to be involved in education. The less extreme view calls for government issued vouchers that could be used at whatever school the parents choose. I know a lot of public school teachers, and they all, without exception, agree that the administrative costs of their schools are ridiculous.

On the other hand, having grown up in a private (segregationist) academy, I took a lot of pride in finally getting my daughter into a Fort Worth public school. Sending her to the local public school on Fort Worth's East Side was out of the question, though. That place is a Gladiator Training facility. Some strings got pulled, and she went to the public school near TCU.

On the other hand, when she came home from school each day, I asked her what she had learned. The answer was invariably "Nothing. We sat through this period, watched a movie in this class, hung out in the gym during this class, and I worked Sudoku's during this class." Or words to that effect.

On the other hand, she made a lot of minority friends.

On the other hand, diversity is not the point of an education, no matter what those people say who send their kids to Sidwell Friends in D.C.

On the other hand, I got to enjoy a warm fuzzy feeling of righteousness. Perhaps this deluded feeling is what left-wingers experience all the time.

Anyway, Clarence Page has a great editorial about the Obama education options, and he's much calmer than I am. Mr. Page wrote the best of the bunch. Please try to read it.
Here's Bob Parks at Black And Right.
Here's a brief excerpt from Investor's Business Daily: He (Obama) recently told an interviewer that he opposes school choice because "although it might benefit some kids at the top, what you're going to do is leave a lot of kids at the bottom."
Not being left behind are Obama's daughters, who attend the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. There, tuition ranges from $15,528 for kindergarten to $20,445 for high school. When asked about it during last year's YouTube debate, Sen. Obama responded that it was "the best option" for his children. They had a choice Obama would deny others.

Curious Snippets from a Cynical Optimist

Ok, I'm dragging another British Libertarian site in here.

VindicoVindico, whose blog "Curious Snippets from a Cynical Optimist" is already available on the Libertarian sidebar list, has things to say about "Private Schools and Socialist Logic".
If you don't laugh out loud when Vin chastises a British politician who is making an "elephant in the living room" analogy, well.....I bet you're an elephant also.

My own take on private schools is that they're a good thing as long as they take anyone who can pay for them and they don't discriminate on the basis of race, hair color, etc etc etc. Small l libertarians (as opposed to large L) generally like private schools because they help end the public school monopoly.

Competition strengthens organizations that survive competition. If public schools don't have enough competitors, we'll be stuck with....well, we'd be stuck with what we have now. I had to help a functional illiterate (who has a public school diploma) fill out a job application a few weeks ago. The boy could write his name and phone number, but nothing else.

Very discouraging.