Category Archives: culture

Some Thoughts on Freedom

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Daniel Hannan, Member European Parliament for South East England, has a few.  His book, Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World, was excerpted by The Wall Street Journal a couple weekends ago.  Here are some of Hannan’s thoughts from that excerpt.

Asked, early in his presidency, whether he believed in American exceptionalism, Barack Obama gave a telling reply.  “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

The first part of that answer is fascinating (we’ll come back to the Greeks in a bit).  Most Brits do indeed believe in British exceptionalism.  But here’s the thing: they define it in almost exactly the same way that Americans do.  British exceptionalism, like its American cousin, has traditionally been held to reside in a series of values and institutions: personal liberty, free contract, jury trials, uncensored newspapers, regular elections, habeas corpus, open competition, secure property, religious pluralism.

…

What made the Anglosphere different?  Foreign visitors through the centuries remarked on a number of peculiar characteristics: the profusion of nonstate organizations, clubs, charities and foundations; the cheerful materialism of the population; the strong county institutions, including locally chosen law officers and judges; the easy coexistence of different denominations (religious toleration wasn’t unique to the Anglosphere, but religious equality—that is, freedom for every sect to proselytize—was almost unknown in the rest of the world).  They were struck by the weakness, in both law and custom, of the extended family, and by the converse emphasis on individualism.  They wondered at the stubborn elevation of private property over raison d’état, of personal freedom over collective need.

And a warning:

There is, of course, a flip-side.  If the US abandons its political structures, it will lose its identity more thoroughly than states that define nationality by blood or territory.  Power is shifting from the 50 states to Washington, DC, from elected representatives to federal bureaucrats, from citizens to the government.  As the US moves toward European-style health care, day care, college education, carbon taxes, foreign policy and spending levels, so it becomes less prosperous, less confident and less free.

…

Which brings us back to Mr. Obama’s curiously qualified defense of American exceptionalism.  Outside the Anglosphere, people have traditionally expected—indeed, demanded—far more state intervention.  They look to the government to solve their problems, and when the government fails, they become petulant.

What he said.

Hannan’s book, from which this excerpt of an excerpt comes, can be found here and here.

Racist Assaults

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A group of 10 black youths—one of them a 12-year-old girl—surrounded a white couple’s car in Brooklyn, viciously beating the husband and yanking the wife to the pavement by her hair as they peppered the two with racial slurs, authorities said.

Get those crackers!” some of them screamed, according to court papers.  “Get that white whore!”

And so on.

I wonder: if President Barack Obama had a son and daughter-in-law, would they look like this couple?

Affirmative Action, Again

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Michigan’s Proposition 2 is in front of the Supreme Court, with oral arguments having occurred last Tuesday.  Prop 2 is an amendment to Michigan’s constitution which the citizens of that state very solidly approved ‘way back in 2006, with 58% voting for it.  The amendment banned racial discrimination affirmative action in public education and in state employment and contracting.

Why is this even a question for the Supremes?  Because the 6th Circuit Court struck down the people’s voice on the odd pseudo-logic that banning racial preference was somehow harmful to minorities.  It would, as The Wall Street Journal put it, “bar a black student from seeking preferential admission to the University of Michigan while allowing applicants with alumni connections or other attributes to try to gain an edge.”

The 6th‘s argument is curious especially because the Michigan citizens’ amendment doesn’t discriminate on the basis of race; it bans exactly that.  Minorities can, for instance, go on about seeking special preferences based on family—just as anyone can at nearly any college or university in the country.  Minorities can go on about seeking special preferences for funding for sickle-cell anemia, which particularly afflicts blacks (oh, wait, there’s that disparate impact thing) or on and on.  No one can seek special preferences on the basis of race, though.

Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary attorney, George B Washington, says with no trace of irony,

We don’t believe in the colorblind Constitution.  We’re making what we think is a straightforward defense of the rights of black and Latino young people” to seek admissions preferences from university officials….

It doesn’t get any starker than this: eliminating discrimination on the basis of race is to discriminate on the basis of race because discrimination on the basis of race is a race right.

What should be a slam dunk in the Supreme Court, though, isn’t.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the 14th Amendment had been applied to protect politically weak “minorities against hostile, disadvantageous legislation” imposed by the majority.  True enough: the 14th demands “equal protection of the laws” for all, regardless of race (or any other non-meritorious characteristic).  By banning racial preferences, the citizens of Michigan did exactly than, and so those good citizens protected Michigan’s politically weak “minorities against hostile, disadvantageous legislation.”  Ginsburg chooses not to see that, however.

Additionally, Justice Sonia Sotomayor had this:

It’s always wonderful for minorities that they finally get in, they finally have children, and now you’re going to do away [with] that preference for them.  It seems that the game post keeps changing every few years for minorities.

No.  The problem is the constant insistence on racial preference—on judgment not by the content of a man’s character, but by the color of his skin.  The so far denied change is to eliminate that pernicious discrimination.

Finally, many have argued that Prop 2 actually has hurt minorities: their enrollment in Michigan’s colleges and universities, has fallen since the amendment was adopted.  A look at actual facts presents a different picture, though.  The graph below, from the University of Michigan and The Wall Street Journal, illustrates.

Plainly, there has been no effect at all on one minority group (which has been carefully ignored throughout the pro-affirmative action types—no discrimination here, though).  Americans of Asian descent has been constant since 2000, six years before passage of the amendment.

Black enrollment has fallen off.  But that downward trend was well established long before passage; their enrollment has been dropping steadily since 2001.  Since passage, the drop-off has continued, unchanged.

Hispanic enrollment paints a somewhat different picture.  This group’s enrollment has been flat since passage, halting a slight downward trend from a 2002 peak.

At worst, the citizens’ amendment has had no effect on minority enrollment.

Again, I ask: why is this even a question for the Supremes?  Except that it’s necessary in order to reverse a racially ignorant ruling by the 6th.

Mentalities: Engineering or Liberal Arts?

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Purdue University President Mitch Daniels (and ex-Governor of Indiana) had a thought on STEM graduates and gluts.  He spoke about this at his keynote address to the National Academy of Engineering a week or so ago.

Engineers, unlike, for instance, lawyers or financial experts, frequently generate through their innovation new work for themselves and others.  Somewhere in any potential “glut” will be new Watts and Edisons and Noyces who give birth to entire new industries that require the services of engineers and non-engineers alike.

But even if we were to somehow outrun the market’s need for engineering talent, we will be a far stronger country if the engineering mentality takes a more prominent place in our national conversations.

The Liberal Arts mentality (those lawyers and financial experts, and history and philosophy majors), on the other hand, worries too much about “what might go wrong” and not enough about “what is the problem, and how do we fix it” that is the STEM’s approach to life.  The Liberal Arts mentality worries too much about “we have to do all of this for the less fortunate” and not enough about “how do we help the less fortunate help themselves, and how do we pay for that” that is the STEM’s approach to life.

There’s nothing wrong with Liberal Arts approach; it provides an important alternative way of looking at the world.  But for a burgeoning, prosperous economy in which everyone, regardless of their individual situations, can participate, we need the engineer’s problem scoping and solving mentality.