Some Words on Timidity

RR Reno, editor of First Things, had an interesting op-ed about why he isn’t interested in hiring graduates of our Ivy League schools. His disdain wasn’t so much for the woke activists effectively running those schools as it was for the rest of the pupils (my term; his more generous one was “students”) there [emphasis added].

Student activists don’t represent the majority of students. But I find myself wondering about the silent acquiescence of most students. They allow themselves to be cowed by charges of racism and other sins. I sympathize. The atmosphere of intimidation in elite higher education is intense. But I don’t want to hire a person well-practiced in remaining silent when it costs something to speak up.

The same applies to existing CxOs of our businesses who show themselves too timid to speak against the woke, or against anything else in which they do not believe. If they’re that timid, how can the companies they run be expected to compete—domestically or globally?

Those meek, acquiescent pupils? Look at the example set for them at those schools: the meek, acquiescent persons of the schools’ administrations, who have spent the last several years, if not their professional lives well-practiced in remaining silent when it costs something to speak up against their woke activist pupils. That studied [sic] timidity doesn’t excuse the silent pupils’ own timidity (their peers provide a different example), but those…administrators…with their example make their timid charges’ paths that much harder.

An Oxymoron Constitutional Amendment

That’s what the Illinois State legislature wants to inflict on the State’s citizens. That body has passed a State Constitution amendment proposal, at union behest, that would

guarantee a ““fundamental right to organize and to bargain collectively,” including for better wages, hours, working conditions….

Never mind that that right already exists in our nation’s Constitution via the 1st Amendment’s Freedom of Assembly clause and the Supreme Court’s NAACP v Alabama ruling, which extended “speech” to include association and extended both to the State level.

That’s not the end of it, though. The legislature’s proposed amendment also says that

no law would be allowed to block labor agreements from “requiring membership in an organization as a condition of employment.”

That is a blatant violation of citizens’, and of a citizen’s, freedom of association—and of their speech rights by requiring them to associate with others in order to speak of certain things.

The thing will go to the citizens of Illinois in 2022, and it’s one more illustration of Illinois’ governmental dysfunction.

Lockdowns and Employment/Jobs Recovery

Wall Street Journal editors had a couple of graphs that illustrated these things in their Tuesday editorial.

Those are primarily Republican/Conservative-run States at the top, and primarily Progressive-Democrat-run States at the bottom.

And this one:

Again, the worst performing States are primarily Progressive-Democrat-run; the best performing—notably at/near their pre-Wuhan Virus situation levels—are primarily Republican/Conservative-run.

The primary distinction is between States with hard and broad restrictions on movement and gathering together, up to and including sharp and extended lockdowns, and those States with markedly looser restrictions, up to and including no or very brief lockdowns of limited breadth.

It’s instructive, though, to see the former are primarily run by Progressive-Democrats, who trust no one but their personal selves, and the latter are primarily run by Republicans and Conservatives, who trust their constituents to make in-the-main sound decisions regarding their own and their neighbors’ individual welfare.

“Student-Loan Debt Is a Burden on the Young”

A number of letter writers The Wall Street Journal‘s Wednesday Letters column expressed their concerns about student debt. One comment, though, jumped in my direction.

It is time for the federal government to get out of the student-loan business.

The writer is well along; that’s a critical half of the problem.

The other critical half, is to not borrow in the first place. If a person can’t afford to go to college on his own nickel or on scholarships, he should go to a trade school or a community college that teaches trades.

Then get a job. The trades are more than honorable jobs, they’re their own Critical Items in our economy: nothing gets built—including the Progressive-Democrats’ turtles all the way down infrastructure—without them. And, the trades provide a nice income as well as actual work experience and time in the real world during which the person can arrive at a more informed decision about what he wants to do with his life and/or what he wants to get out of college.

And in the latter case, he can be accumulating a sum of his own money with which to cover his college costs.

Foxconn’s New Deal

In 2017, Foxconn signed a deal with Wisconsin to invest $10 billion, build an electronics manufacturing plant in the State, and hire 13,000 people by the year 2032.

Now, Foxconn has renegotiated the deal and will invest as much as $672 million and create 1,454 jobs by the year 2025.

What’s changed?

A number of things, but two in particular are the Republican Governor and Republican President in 2017, and the Progressive-Democrat Governor and the Progressive-Democrat President today.

It’s also true that the negotiated incentives are considerably less per job created under the new deal than under the old, but what does that matter to the 11,500 folks who won’t get any of those new jobs? What does that matter to the businesses—and their employees and prospective new hires—who won’t get the business associated with that earlier and much larger investment?

But hey, collateral damage happens. Nor does that damage matter to Progressive-Democrats; all they want is the look-good-in-the-shower headlines.