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For All Mankind
Monday 01-30-2012 10:25am AK
Newt Gingrich wants a Moon base by the end of his second term. That's preposterous, you say. There's no way Newt Gingrich would be re-elected as president! Also, Moon base??? Gingrich is well-known for floating dozens of ideas before breakfast, and this one was obviously inspired by the need to sway primary voters on Florida's Space Coast. Yet I can easily believe that Gingrich believes in the symbolic importance of such a project. "You don't arouse the American nation with trivial, bureaucratic, rational objectives," he said, admitting that a Moon base is irrational. But he has a point: when we aspire to great deeds, we must make ourselves great to achieve them.
The U.S. space program is already on track to send astronauts beyond Earth orbit. The Orion capsule is under development along with a new booster that could carry it to nearby asteroids or to Mars. A Moon mission had been part of the overall Constellation program, but Pres. Obama shifted that goal. To distinguish himself from the incumbent, Gingrich is putting the Moon back on the itinerary as well as accelerating the timetable. If fast is the top priority, that means the Moon base must either be cheap or good; as the saying goes, "You can only pick two." Unless Gingrich is willing to dump enormous amounts of treasure into making his Moon base fast and good, it's going to have to be done on the cheap. I'd prefer a good Moon base, above all else, and as cheap as possible, meaning speed is not as important. Which is how the Obama administration is proceeding.
A Moon base would be cool, no doubt about it. On the left-hand bar, you'll find a link to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, an archive of transcripts from the Moon missions. The gritty, minute-to-minute details make the reality of a lunar voyage much more vivid. The Moon is a real place, and a dozen men camped there for hours and days at a time! Like Phil Plait, I'd like to see astronauts return to the Moon, but only in the right way (good rather than fast) and for the right reason. What is Gingrich's reason? Commercial or scientific missions don't pencil out, according to Lawrence Krauss, especially not on an accelerated timetable. And unless the base is self-sustaining, it will require a "government-sponsored food program" that would become President Gingrich's legacy.
Gingrich also envisions claiming part of the Moon as U.S. territory (and authored a bill to do so, as ABC's Jonathan Karl recalls). In his zealous opposition to perceived anti-colonialist Barack Obama, Gingrich is proposing a new wave of colonization. Unfortunately, staking a national claim on the Moon would be illegal under the Outer Space Treaty, which recognizes all celestial objects as "the common heritage of mankind." In that spirit, when humans return to the Moon, it should be as an international joint venture, not as a way to prove one country's superiority (which the U.S. already did, Moon-wise). Gingrich doesn't see it that way, instead insisting that building a Moon base by 2020 would give the U.S. "so much experience in space that we clearly have a capacity that the Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to matching." At least Napoleon only dreamed of dominating the Earth.
Gingrich is correct that a nation must set ambitious goals to drive its development, but he seems to have lost sight of why that development is important. The greatness of a nation is not measured by the topmost outliers but by the aggregate greatness of its people. My cousins in Finland refer to this as reilu meininki, or fair dealing. This is evident in the Finnish model of educational excellence, which aims to lift everyone up. The race is not won by the swiftest if others collapse on the track; only when everyone crosses the finish line can victory be achieved. This is true for projects like a Moon base, which would be more affordable if the cost is spread among a greater number of contributors. Treating space exploration as a goal of the human race, as a measure of global greatness, gives even more contributors a stake in the outcome. Most Oppressive Dominion
Tuesday 01-24-2012 10:30am AK
When freedom of religion conflicts with some other consideration, it often wins. It is a long-cherished right given strong constitutional protection, federal and state. Except for Article 7 of the Alaska constitution, which forbids public money for religious or private schools. That clause would be deleted by HJR 16 (and its companion, SJR 9) to allow state scholarships to be spent at religious schools. The sponsor, Wasilla Rep. Wes Keller, spoke about his bill Monday, saying it's all about choice. But even with Article 7 intact, parents can choose to send children to private schools. Yes, they still pay taxes that support public schools, but that's true of most taxpayers, who have no children in public school. Universal education is a public benefit (remember that next time a jury must decide your fate), whereas private school is an optional extra.
Private schools are different from public schools not just because they can ignore high-stakes tests or cater to the idiosyncratic demands of parents. They can also, by invoking religion, refuse to obey civil rights laws. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that a school can discriminate against a teacher by invoking the "ministerial exemption." Fred Clark observes that the justices reasoned that government should not define "minister" for a religious group. The Alliance Defense Fund is hoping the Hosanna-Tabor ruling applies more generally, as it was cited as a potential downfall of the gay rights initiative that will appear on the Anchorage ballot in April. An ADF lawyer told the Anchorage Daily News last Friday that the "ministerial exemption" is not enough, and that anyone should be able to evade anti-discrimination laws for any religious reason. Commenting on an interview with the ADF's founder, Ed Brayton quipped, "I guess that’s what they mean by special rights, eh?"
Religious convictions already provide loopholes to avoid dozens of generally applicable laws. Draftees can be conscientious objectors; parents can refuse to vaccinate children; prisons must accommodate Satanists; Catholic hospitals don't have to provide contraception; churches don't have to pay taxes. Without these loopholes, the government potentially infringes on the rights of conscience, which James Madison considered "the most sacred of all property." Of course, Madison also considered the slaves he owned to be his property, even if he told the Constitutional Convention that "distinction of color" had led to "the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man." Freedom of conscience was codified in Madison's era, but the seeds of a new freedom from prejudice were beginning to sprout. Now that laws prohibit discrimination, these two freedoms are sometimes in conflict.
Do anti-discrimination laws infringe on the freedom of conscience? Pretty much, yeah. That's the point: to substitute one conscience for another, as a healthy organ replaces a diseased one. What is the virtue in clinging to a conscience that compels discrimination? Take the Rhode Island florists who refused to deliver to the plaintiff who won an Establishment Clause lawsuit. Will their reverse boycott convince their unwanted customers of the error of their ways? Or are they trying to maintain their own purity by not mingling with heathens? Even Jesus sat down with lepers, sinners, and tax collectors.
Since discrimination is not part of my creed, I must struggle to understand why others would want to do it. I can easily imagine discrimination as a manifestation of a psychological need for power over others or a defense against change. It does suggest the absence of the values I was raised with, to treat people fairly. Maybe some people are brought up wrong. Fred Clark says that's the real shame about the "ministerial exemption" ruling. In that case, a private school fired a teacher who became ill, which would ordinarily violate the teacher's rights, by arguing that the teacher is a minister, and therefore exempt from protection. Apart from whether the school has that right, Clark asks what lesson the school is teaching about how students should treat the sick, or about fairness generally. If this is the hidden curriculum of private schools, then denying them public money is doing the rest of society a favor. To Whom Much Has Been Given
Saturday 01-21-2012 11:29am AK
Rick Rydell makes it look easy. The other day he expounded for a good five minutes on the fact that the temperature was zero degrees. Maybe not the most thrilling topic, but it demonstrated the talent which qualifies him as a commentator. You think it's easy to talk at length for hours each day? I have a hard enough time filling this Web page! As if to prove the point, when Rick was sick on Wednesday, Paul Jenkins (also a skilled expounder) took over as emergency back-up host, but had no preparation. He had to ask me for topics. All I could give him was the story about the cost of 24-hour snow plowing. That's the topic I would've chosen if I had been forced to host the show. But I wouldn't have had much to say beyond, "Seems like it would be worth paying for," which would've left three more hours to fill.
Mike Huckabee has an easier job, since his morning report runs just 4 minutes. That's the equivalent of one of my 700-word columns. He has the advantage of commenting on the day's news, which gives him an endless supply of material. He can spend half his time mentioning the story and the other half supplying his viewpoint. It goes by so quickly, he doesn't have to worry about making sense. Like the other day, he argued that the allegations by Newt Gingrich's ex-wife are old news ( which they are) and should be ignored because she has an "axe to grind." What's she got against her ex-husband? Oh yeah, he cheated on her. That's why they divorced.
Huckabee's output as a commentator isn't limited to his 4-minute report. Speaking on FOX News on Friday, Huckabee defended Mitt Romney's reluctance to release his tax returns by suggesting that Romney should challenge Pres. Obama to release his college records. Huckabee says those would reveal if Obama considered himself a " foreign student," which indicates that Huckabee won't let go of the birth certificate nonsense. College records for tax returns would not be a fair trade, though. Pres. Obama has already released his tax returns; to force the release of his college records, Romney would have to ante with college records of his own.
Romney has said he doesn't want to release his tax returns because they would give ammunition to Democrats. He probably shouldn't have said that, since it suggests something in his tax records would damage his candidacy. Not that his candidacy isn't already damaged by the fact that he's Mitt Romney. The guy has been campaigning for years and can't quite boost his favorability rating. If it were some other year, he might have an easier time, but not when economic fairness is at the forefront of so many voters' minds. Romney would prefer that it wasn't a campaign issue, that it was spoken of only in " quiet rooms." As long as it's spoken loudly, Romney finds himself on the losing side of the argument.
Talk of economic fairness is motivated by "envy," according to Romney. Fred Clark addressed this in a dialogue/parable over a year ago, when he noted that the greater outrage is when a man has no coat than for a man to have two coats. On Monday, Clark also highlighted a sermon by Martin Luther King about how ignoring the poor is the real sin. (The Gospel of Luke is bursting at the seams with such sentiments; Luke 12:48, for instance.) By dismissing concerns about economic fairness, Romney is displaying the emotion commonly confused with envy: jealousy, the suspicion that a rival is trying to take away what he possesses. The richest 1% are only rivals with the 99% when they are perceived as amassing wealth at the expense of the majority. When the 99% can satisfy their own needs, the 1% have nothing to fear. A candidate like Romney would be more comfortable in such an era. Truth vigilante
Tuesday 01-17-2012 8:40am AK
Should KENI be a "truth vigilante"? That's a variation on the question asked by New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane last week. When journalists correct the misstatements of public figures, he says, journalists appear to be taking sides. But if lies go unchallenged, journalists are feeding disinformation to the audience. For example, "Senator X said, 'The sky is green'" is a true statement, if in fact Senator X said those words. This isn't enough, according to Fred Clark, who says journalists who fail to report "The sky is actually blue" are missing the real story: Senator X just told a whopper. But fact-checking is rarely so clear-cut, according to Kevin Drum. He says most disagreements, in politics especially, are over values and opinions, not provable facts. Drum is leery of making the New York Times the ultimate arbiter of truth. Old enough to care, too young to know better
Tuesday 01-10-2012 10:03am AK
When I suggested recently that political candidates should be tested for competence, I didn't mean right away. And I didn't mean selectively. According to the Los Angeles Times, a city council candidate in Arizona is being forced to prove that she meets that state's requirement for English language proficiency. No other candidates are being tested, as far as I can tell, and that's unfair. If candidates have to meet a standard, they should all take the test. When applied unequally, the test is obviously being used as a barrier. That was the same problem with literacy tests for voters. Interestingly enough, the federal Voting Rights Act only ended the practice of unfair literacy tests; the law allows literacy tests if they are applied fairly (but since fairness was never the point of literacy tests, nobody has bothered to revive them). Even full-on discrimination based on intelligence is legal, according to a court ruling from New York in 2000. Although in that case, a man was barred from being a police officer because he scored too high. We might not have to worry about that with political candidates.
If candidates are being tested for competence, we might as well test voters, too. Some might say that the process of voting itself screens out the least competent. For instance, Bill O'Reilly observed recently that some college kids were " too stupid to vote" because they didn't realize they could use an absentee ballot. Interesting idea there, and O'Reilly knows personally how difficult the voting process can be to navigate: he said he couldn't figure out how to register as an independent, which is why he was a registered Republican for many years, even when he said he wasn't. Rush Limbaugh found the registration process so burdensome that he never voted until he was 37 years old. However, this informal screening process may still be letting through too many unqualified voters. Perhaps we should optimize our democracy by ensuring that votes are cast by the most intelligent citizens.
What, then, does it mean to be "too stupid to vote"? In the days of literacy tests, the standard was whether one possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of civics trivia. This lesson plan links to an old Alabama test that asked 68 questions ranging from easy ones like, "43) In which document or writing is the Bill of Rights found?" to stumpers like, "28) The electoral vote for President is counted in the presence of two bodies. Name them." Many questions have no bearing on the voter's decision-making abilities, such as, "8) When the Constitution was approved by the original colonies, how many states had to ratify it in order for it to be in effect?" What we really need is a test of a voter's ability to make reasoned decisions. These include tests of executive function or the cognitive abilities tests given to school children or prospective employees. All we need to decide is what percentile score is the cutoff, below which nobody gets to vote. Sound fair enough?
At least you can cram for the Alabama test. Much of cognitive ability is innate, or else takes years of practice to improve. So O'Reilly has a point that even college students might not be equipped to vote. Students can go pretty far in college without honing their decision-making skills, in my experience. Blowing out 18 birthday candles is not enough to transform a child into a responsible citizen. Psychologists now recognize a developmental period called emerging adulthood, the gap between physical and social maturity. Military service falls squarely in that gap, exploiting the strength of youth before the brain's higher functions kick in a few years later. When the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971, it wasn't because teenagers were capable of making better decisions; it was because of the obvious hypocrisy of drafting soldiers to carry out policies they had no say in until they were 21.
Presently, these are the only standards we have for the voting franchise: minimum age and the ability to navigate the registration and ballot requirements. Some states also include the additional hurdle of photo IDs. None of these are in place to ensure that votes are cast wisely. Where democracy is concerned, wisdom is defined by majority vote. If voters are barely old enough or can barely fill in a ballot, their opinion counts, too. That may skew the outcome away from the optimum, but as the saying goes, in a democracy, you get the government you deserve. We can limit the damage by ensuring that elected representatives are of the highest quality. So if we don't screen voters with an intelligence test, at least we should screen
candidates. Are they up to the challenge?
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© 2012
