Who Wins with the Incandescent Light Bulb Ban...

Healthcare is a touchy subject.  There are so many deeply emotional stories of family members dying painful and seemingly needless deaths that we feel the need to do something to help them. Even I, as a libertarian, feel that we as a nation should be able to do better. Before reading further I would like you to read this post on a far left liberal blogging website.

That blog posting is rather crass but deeply emotional. I am willing to bet that most of us come away from reading it with a feeling of sadness for that woman’s brother and a sense of wanting us to do better when it comes to health care availability for all. Didn’t you?

Of course, being a far left liberal website, this woman blamed the republicans and the “tea-jadist” for the painful death of her brother. And since this website does not allow non-member comments all the comments to her blog post were in full support and agreement with her point of view on his death. After all, he went to the doctor for a pain in his buttocks on December 3 and ended up having to wait until February 25 to talk to a pulmonologist about a 3cm spot they had found on his lung. The suggestion was that if he had not had to wait they could have stopped the metastatic cancer that turned out to be the cause of his pain.

Before I go further I would like to say that I have a deep sense of compassion for this woman’s brother and the pain he suffered. My father also died from cancer that had metastasized, as well as my wife’s father. It will be a wonderful world when no one has to go through such agony and we can all live long and healthy lives with quick and quiet deaths at the end. Unfortunately, the world of Star Trek and the one shot cure has not yet arrived.

Now, for the errors in this woman’s thinking on the death of her brother: he went to the doctor for a pain in his buttocks – not for a pain in his lungs or for breathing difficulties. The fact that ER personnel apparently ordered chest x-rays for a pain in his buttocks suggest that they heard something in his breathing. Something that gave them enough pause to order a chest x-ray for a patient that was complaining of a pain in his buttocks. X-rays are expensive and ERs don’t order them for no reason; especially for a patient that has no visible means of paying for them. And the wait for the pulmonologist is normal even if you have insurance. I myself had to wait six weeks to see a pulmonologist after an MRI showed a small spot of scar tissue in my lungs. So, overall it sounds like he was treated pretty well – whether he had insurance or not. This unfortunate man had lung cancer that had metastasized and had spread to the bone in his buttocks. Metastatic cancer is an insidious disease that is almost impossible to cure and almost always leads to a slow and painful death. His horrible demise was already set before he ever made that first ER visit.

The republicans and tea-partiers had nothing to do with this; they did not create metastatic cancer or give it to this man. No amount of socialized healthcare would have saved him either. He was going to die. What socialized medicine would have done in this case is rip-off the system for a minimum of $22,000. How do I know that? The woman stated that the man’s friends had donated the $2,000 that a proctologist had wanted to do some type of outpatient surgery and that he could not have that operation done because the hospital wanted $20,000 for the use of the operating room. If the man had had insurance then he would have received this operation – probably for a cost to the health care system far greater than the $22,000 total mentioned. And this surgery would not have done anything to save this man’s life. Yes, the surgeon might have discovered the cancerous bone, and might have even cut it out, but the man would have still died a slow and painful death. At most, the surgeon would have alleviated the man’s suffering for a brief time – only for it to return within a few months.

At this point I’d be willing to bet that you are expecting me to expound on the virtues of our private health care system and rail against socialized medicine. After all, I’m supposed to be a libertarian – right?  And Canadians – who’s socialized medical system produces long lines and government entities deciding who dies and who doesn’t – come here in droves for health care – don’t they?

Well, even for me it is not that simple. Yes, I am a libertarian but when it comes to health care you are talking about people’s lives – the most precious liberty of all. Someone’s ability to pay for health care, or health insurance, should not be the main factor in deciding whether they get the health care that they need. Just because someone has money does not mean that they are more worthy of being saved than those that don’t. We, as a nation, can do better than this. However, the bloated Obama’ Care program will do nothing to help the current situation. The far left’s answer to everything - government control - will not do anything but create another bloated bureaucracy and cost the nation even more. That proctologist’s operation would have cost the taxpayers that $22,000 dollars (probably more under government controlled heath care) and in return the man would have died anyway. The republicans and tea-partiers are not saying that we don’t need to do something about the state of our current health care system – they are just saying that the liberal Obama solution is not the right one.

Despite the cries from conservatives about Canadians coming here in droves for their health care, Canadian surveys show that less than 0.5% of Canadians sought medical care in the United States and less than a quarter of those did so expressly. In other words, most of the 0.5% did so just because they were already here. So this particular argument against socialized medicine is a red herring designed to distract attention from the fact that a far greater percentage of Canadians are happy with their health care system (75%) than are Americans (%25). In one famous case, Shona Holmes, a Canadian, came to the Mayo Clinic for a “life threatening” condition because she could not get the care she needed in a timely manner in Canada. She even went on to appear in ads in the United States warning Americans about the dangers of adopting a Canadian style health care system.  The condition that she had is known as Rathke's cleft cyst. She described this condition as a life threatening brain cancer that was taking her vision and (through suggestion) would eventually take her life. In fact, Rathke's cleft cyst is a benign (non-cancerous) growth that occurs on the pituitary gland. It is most often found during autopsies of individuals who died from unrelated causes. Sufferers of Rathke’s cleft often have disturbances to their vision but actual death rate due to Rathke's cleft cyst is 0%.

There are no real statistics that can be used to support the idea that the US health care system is better than any other developed nation. In fact, all the statistics show otherwise – we are near the bottom. We spend more money for health care per capita than any other nation and yet we rank 37^th for overall health care. Still, nothing in Obama Care is going to improve this. Expanding federal government by forcing a few million people to buy health insurance – that do not want it – will not fix it.

The conservative right also complains about the possibility of the government deciding who lives and who dies. This is a valid concern and, considering how lousy the government is at running most social programs, one which will most likely come to pass under Obama Care. The problem that I see with this argument from the right is that someone is always deciding who lives and who dies. Right now the main factor in that decision is money. Those that don’t have money either don’t get the care they need or have to wait for months to get approval for life saving treatment on Medicaid. Are the corporate pirates of Enron, or Lehman Brothers, or Fanny Mae anymore worth saving than those who, perhaps, spend their lives volunteering to help others and have little in the way of capital assets of their own?

Health care is a limited resource, one which everyone needs at some point in their life, and something that most of don’t really think of as optional. This in itself makes it a service that does not fully work under the capitalist system. For it to continue on in its current state is simply unacceptable for most of us. Yet, nothing in Obama Care will help make anything any better. In fact, it will do to health care what the liberal ideas have done to our school system. It will bring down the level of care to the lowest common denominator for all of us rather than lifting it up for the unfortunate few.

What are we to do? I don’t have the answers for that one. What I would do is scrap Obama Care in its entirety and start over. I would bring in doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and insurance company representatives, as well as everyday citizens, to talk about the issues that they face and the pressures that keep their cost rising. I would attempt to begin solving the issues without more government programs and bureaucracies to drive up the cost. I would look at existing programs to see what works and what doesn’t. And, even though I am a libertarian, I would look at taking out the profit motive where possible. A fully socialized health care system where everyone receives the most drastic of treatments in the attempt to save their lives at all cost would be a dramatic failure – a cost burden that would end up collapsing our entire way of life. However, the “money or your life” type system that would exist under a fully capitalist system is not acceptable either.

Alternate Blog: http://libertarianorbust.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/who-wins-with-the-incandescent-light-bulb-ban/

Obama Care

Healthcare is a touchy subject.  There are so many deeply emotional stories of family members dying painful and seemingly needless deaths that we feel the need to do something to help them. Even I, as a libertarian, feel that we as a nation should be able to do better. Before reading further I would like you to read this post on a far left liberal blogging website.

That blog posting is rather crass but deeply emotional. I am willing to bet that most of us come away from reading it with a feeling of sadness for that woman’s brother and a sense of wanting us to do better when it comes to health care availability for all. Didn’t you?

Of course, being a far left liberal website, this woman blamed the republicans and the “tea-jadist” for the painful death of her brother. And since this website does not allow non-member comments all the comments to her blog post were in full support and agreement with her point of view on his death. After all, he went to the doctor for a pain in his buttocks on December 3 and ended up having to wait until February 25 to talk to a pulmonologist about a 3cm spot they had found on his lung. The suggestion was that if he had not had to wait they could have stopped the metastatic cancer that turned out to be the cause of his pain.

Before I go further I would like to say that I have a deep sense of compassion for this woman’s brother and the pain he suffered. My father also died from cancer that had metastasized, as well as my wife’s father. It will be a wonderful world when no one has to go through such agony and we can all live long and healthy lives with quick and quiet deaths at the end. Unfortunately, the world of Star Trek and the one shot cure has not yet arrived.

Now, for the errors in this woman’s thinking on the death of her brother: he went to the doctor for a pain in his buttocks – not for a pain in his lungs or for breathing difficulties. The fact that ER personnel apparently ordered chest x-rays for a pain in his buttocks suggest that they heard something in his breathing. Something that gave them enough pause to order a chest x-ray for a patient that was complaining of a pain in his buttocks. X-rays are expensive and ERs don’t order them for no reason; especially for a patient that has no visible means of paying for them. And the wait for the pulmonologist is normal even if you have insurance. I myself had to wait six weeks to see a pulmonologist after an MRI showed a small spot of scar tissue in my lungs. So, overall it sounds like he was treated pretty well – whether he had insurance or not. This unfortunate man had lung cancer that had metastasized and had spread to the bone in his buttocks. Metastatic cancer is an insidious disease that is almost impossible to cure and almost always leads to a slow and painful death. His horrible demise was already set before he ever made that first ER visit.

The republicans and tea-partiers had nothing to do with this; they did not create metastatic cancer or give it to this man. No amount of socialized healthcare would have saved him either. He was going to die. What socialized medicine would have done in this case is rip-off the system for a minimum of $22,000. How do I know that? The woman stated that the man’s friends had donated the $2,000 that a proctologist had wanted to do some type of outpatient surgery and that he could not have that operation done because the hospital wanted $20,000 for the use of the operating room. If the man had had insurance then he would have received this operation – probably for a cost to the health care system far greater than the $22,000 total mentioned. And this surgery would not have done anything to save this man’s life. Yes, the surgeon might have discovered the cancerous bone, and might have even cut it out, but the man would have still died a slow and painful death. At most, the surgeon would have alleviated the man’s suffering for a brief time – only for it to return within a few months.

At this point I’d be willing to bet that you are expecting me to expound on the virtues of our private health care system and rail against socialized medicine. After all, I’m supposed to be a libertarian – right?  And Canadians – who’s socialized medical system produces long lines and government entities deciding who dies and who doesn’t – come here in droves for health care – don’t they?

Well, even for me it is not that simple. Yes, I am a libertarian but when it comes to health care you are talking about people’s lives – the most precious liberty of all. Someone’s ability to pay for health care, or health insurance, should not be the main factor in deciding whether they get the health care that they need. Just because someone has money does not mean that they are more worthy of being saved than those that don’t. We, as a nation, can do better than this. However, the bloated Obama’ Care program will do nothing to help the current situation. The far left’s answer to everything - government control - will not do anything but create another bloated bureaucracy and cost the nation even more. That proctologist’s operation would have cost the taxpayers that $22,000 dollars (probably more under government controlled heath care) and in return the man would have died anyway. The republicans and tea-partiers are not saying that we don’t need to do something about the state of our current health care system – they are just saying that the liberal Obama solution is not the right one.

Despite the cries from conservatives about Canadians coming here in droves for their health care, Canadian surveys show that less than 0.5% of Canadians sought medical care in the United States and less than a quarter of those did so expressly. In other words, most of the 0.5% did so just because they were already here. So this particular argument against socialized medicine is a red herring designed to distract attention from the fact that a far greater percentage of Canadians are happy with their health care system (75%) than are Americans (%25). In one famous case, Shona Holmes, a Canadian, came to the Mayo Clinic for a “life threatening” condition because she could not get the care she needed in a timely manner in Canada. She even went on to appear in ads in the United States warning Americans about the dangers of adopting a Canadian style health care system.  The condition that she had is known as Rathke's cleft cyst. She described this condition as a life threatening brain cancer that was taking her vision and (through suggestion) would eventually take her life. In fact, Rathke's cleft cyst is a benign (non-cancerous) growth that occurs on the pituitary gland. It is most often found during autopsies of individuals who died from unrelated causes. Sufferers of Rathke’s cleft often have disturbances to their vision but actual death rate due to Rathke's cleft cyst is 0%.

There are no real statistics that can be used to support the idea that the US health care system is better than any other developed nation. In fact, all the statistics show otherwise – we are near the bottom. We spend more money for health care per capita than any other nation and yet we rank 37^th for overall health care. Still, nothing in Obama Care is going to improve this. Expanding federal government by forcing a few million people to buy health insurance – that do not want it – will not fix it.

The conservative right also complains about the possibility of the government deciding who lives and who dies. This is a valid concern and, considering how lousy the government is at running most social programs, one which will most likely come to pass under Obama Care. The problem that I see with this argument from the right is that someone is always deciding who lives and who dies. Right now the main factor in that decision is money. Those that don’t have money either don’t get the care they need or have to wait for months to get approval for life saving treatment on Medicaid. Are the corporate pirates of Enron, or Lehman Brothers, or Fanny Mae anymore worth saving than those who, perhaps, spend their lives volunteering to help others and have little in the way of capital assets of their own?

Health care is a limited resource, one which everyone needs at some point in their life, and something that most of don’t really think of as optional. This in itself makes it a service that does not fully work under the capitalist system. For it to continue on in its current state is simply unacceptable for most of us. Yet, nothing in Obama Care will help make anything any better. In fact, it will do to health care what the liberal ideas have done to our school system. It will bring down the level of care to the lowest common denominator for all of us rather than lifting it up for the unfortunate few.

What are we to do? I don’t have the answers for that one. What I would do is scrap Obama Care in its entirety and start over. I would bring in doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and insurance company representatives, as well as everyday citizens, to talk about the issues that they face and the pressures that keep their cost rising. I would attempt to begin solving the issues without more government programs and bureaucracies to drive up the cost. I would look at existing programs to see what works and what doesn’t. And, even though I am a libertarian, I would look at taking out the profit motive where possible. A fully socialized health care system where everyone receives the most drastic of treatments in the attempt to save their lives at all cost would be a dramatic failure – a cost burden that would end up collapsing our entire way of life. However, the “money or your life” type system that would exist under a fully capitalist system is not acceptable either.

Alternate Blog: http://libertarianorbust.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/obama-care/

President Obama's Job Speech

With an unemployment rate of 9.1%, everyone is screaming for jobs. Everyone is waiting with baited breathe to hear how President Obama is going to fix the dismal job situation in this county and return America to work.  Would you like to know the answer right now? You would? Okay, here is the answer - Nothing.

If you’re from either side of the isle you will probably read that as an attack on Obama’s abilities, or lack thereof, as president of the United States. It actually is not. As the republicans have been fond of pointing out (at least up until they began their run for the office), the government cannot create sustainable jobs. Yes, the president and congress can create some infrastructure projects that will put some construction workers back to work for a short period of time but these “shovel ready” jobs are short lived and do very little for the long term health of the nation. These jobs will also do nothing for the majority of the unemployed. There are enough construction workers and laborers on the unemployment rolls to fill these jobs without touching the remaining unemployed workforce (accountants, IT personnel, managers, technical support, etc). These jobs are not only short term but they are also a drain to the overall economy. They drain the government coffers and produce no real means of replenishing them.

So, how about the republicans? If the democrat’s ideas won’t work then the republicans will, right? After all, they want to follow in the footsteps of the great Ronald Regan whose economic policies turned our nation around; pulling us out of a deep recession and putting America back to work. Well, not so fast...

There is no doubt that Reagan’s policies did not hurt the nation and there is no doubt that the country went from “rags to riches” during his tenure in office. However, Reagan’s policies had little to do with the majority of that turn around. Reagan had help that no president from either party is going to have in the foreseeable future. This “help” drove the U.S. economy from a trickle to a raging torrent in a matter of just a few years. What was this magic bullet that so aided Ronald Reagan’s rise to presidential greatness? It was called the “digital age”, and it was coming whether there was a republican in office or a democrat.

The first true personal computers came onto the market as early as 1976 – mainly as a gadget for hobbyist geeks.  By the time Reagan entered office the market was ready to explode. This “new” technology (it wasn’t really new, it was just now becoming available for the mass market) and all the new technologies that followed (hard drives, laser printers, the “mouse”, faster processors, networking, etc) drove the economy out of the recession and into glory. Ronald Reagan rode this wave into history, he did not create it.

So what are we going to do? Well, first and foremost we need to make sure that we put someone into office that will not make things even worse – and this certainly is not Obama. Other than that there is very little any of us can do – even the president. I know that this sounds defeatist but it is reality.  There is no new technology on the horizon that will turn our nation around. Even the protectionist approach of the libertarians such as Ron Paul will not help. Placing large tariffs on imports would drive up the cost of living of all Americans. Can you imagine the cost of that $500 Chinese flat screen television doubling overnight?

Despite the calls of republicans for no new taxes, we do need to fix our tax system and make sure that everyone, including corporations, is paying their fair share. The best way to accomplish this is to do away with the bloated tax code with all its loopholes and write-offs. Corporations such as GE regularly move profits to their foreign subsidiaries and losses to their U.S. subsidiaries to avoid large tax bills. We need a flat rate tax system, starting with the corporations. The corporation’s subsidiaries need to pay taxes as individual entities to take away the trick accounting that leaves companies like GE owing very little even though they made billions in profits. Then we need to move this to the individual income tax system so we are all helping to support our government. This will not fix the current situation but it will make our entire tax system more transparent, fairer for everyone, and take away a source of political double talk that so obscures everything in Washington.

Next we need to buckle down and keep the total Federal Budget below the total Federal Tax Revenue; to continue increasing our debt at this point is irresponsible and dangerous to our nation.  We do not need to make drastic cuts across the board at this time. The shock to the nation as a whole would be too great. We need to take baby steps back towards national physical responsibility.

As for jobs, the government just needs to stay out of the way. The economy will slowly turn around and the free enterprise system will decide who the winners and losers are. The government should stop trying to pick winners and losers – they have a lousy track record at that. Practically every solar energy company that Obama taunted as the future of our nation has now gone bankrupt. And if Obama had let GM file bankruptcy to begin with then we could have saved the American taxpayer billion of dollars.

Wait! They paid it back didn’t they? No, actually they haven’t. In fact, GM never actually paid anything back with its own money.  The federal government gave $49.5 billion to GM to save it from complete collapse - $6.7 billion in “cash” and the rest by purchasing GM stocks at a greatly inflated price of $53 per share.  As it turns out, the feds also put ~$13 billion dollars of aide money into a working capital account for GM. GM, in turn, used this “working capital” to pay back the  $6.7 billion dollar cash loan. Now that is “funny money”!

Washington's Entrenched Power

One of the major issues with Washington is the entrenched power of multi-term representatives in both the house and the senate. Representatives who are re-elected term after term often end up in seats of power such as “Chairman of the House Ways and Means” committee, the “House Budget” committee, the senate “Defense” committee or the “Health Care” committee. These powerful positions are key targets for lobbyist seeking to gain legislation or changes in legislation that are more favorable to their vested interest. The members of these committees, and not just the Chairman, are often the ones that end up in scandals revolving “working” trips to resorts in the Caribbean or some other luxurious place where they are wined and dined by the aforementioned lobbyist in order to gain that favor.

These positions also give power to their members over the rest of the congress. If someone wants their bill to make it out of the committee that it was assigned to then they will often have to give favors to one or more committee members, often in the form of their vote on some other issue, in order to ensure that their bill is not dead on arrival to the committee. This is why these committee positions are so coveted by members of congress. A position on a powerful committee almost instantly imbues you with its power.

This entrenched power is bad for our country.  It ensures “politics as usual” and prevents true compromise on the important issues of the day. The only “fix” for this to be bantered about is term limits for the congressional members. The idea being to limit how many consecutive terms a congressional member can serve before being forced out. After all, we have a term limit on the office of the president so why not the congress as well? The problem with this is that it would require a constitutional amendment to achieve and this would be almost impossible with the entrenched power that is already there. It is human nature to want to hold onto power once you have it.

I would suggest something a little simpler. It would still be difficult to achieve but if the will of the people was strong enough it could be done. This suggestion is to place term limits on the membership of committees. Force a rotation of membership on the committees to break these strangle holds on power. This would only require a “congressional rule” to implement rather than a constitutional amendment.

When our forefathers wrote the Constitution they wrote it from the point of view of those that had no power, no say in the government. They greatly desired to limit the effects of entrenched power on the governmental body. Unfortunately, once they themselves had power they immediately began to fall under its spell. We have been slowly correcting this ever since; the abolition of slavery, a woman’s right to vote, etc. Now it is time to correct it within the very halls of congress.

When Taxes Are Not Taxes And Cuts Are Not Cuts

 I hate half truths and double talk, it drives me nuts. And nowhere do you find more of it than in politics. Washington’s political parties feed them to us on a regular basis. They can’t seem to make single political statement argument without them. The most recent such drivel that has really irritated me is coming from the republicans.

 During the recent debt ceiling limit debates the republicans continuously expounded upon the fact that the United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world at thirty five percent. This was one of the basic arguments that they used against raising taxes - any taxes at all – even in the form of removing corporate jet loop holes. According to a several studies, the majority of corporations pay little or no taxes. And even when they show a huge tax bill that money may never make it to the IRS. What these companies actually end up paying is not really known since they are not required to disclose this information. These corporations use various tricks to shelter the income that they earn from Americans in order to not pay their fair share of taxes. Of course, this gets it start by democrats raising the corporate tax rates to levels that would stifle any company’s ability to grow and compete in the world in order to support their favorite cause.
Then we have the democrats who have always loved to complain about republicans “cutting” their federal programs. The problem is that those cuts were seldom real cuts, which of course they don’t bother to tell you. You see, most programs within the federal government have an automatic increase in their level of funding every year. So if social program “x” got two billion last year then it will get two point two billion this year. When the republicans attempt to curve government spending by preventing this increase the democrats scream “budget cut”!

If you went into your job tomorrow and the boss said, “I’m very sorry but we cannot afford to give pay raises this year due to the economy” would you consider that a pay cut? No, you would probably be happy that you didn’t get a real pay cut!

Half truths and double talk, I hate it.

A Fix for Washington Corruption...

We all know that there are some serious issues of political corruption in Washington. There are always bad apples in any bunch. The corruption that I hate the most, however, is not even considered corruption. It is called “compromise”. You know what I mean. Senator X wants federal money to build a new stadium so he holds his vote as ransom on some important bill until the other senators agree to give him the funding. Senator X does not want his state to be effected by the new health care law so in order to get him on board the other senators agree to not make certain parts of it apply to his state.
This type of “compromise” is often illegal anywhere except Washington. Outside the beltway these actions are called “kickbacks” and “bribes”. And it is eroding our confidence in our government. The american people can never be sure who actually supports these laws or was just forced to accept them for something bigger. And those who truly supported it love to point out how those on the other side of the isle did as well, whether they actually did or not, because they voted for “it”.
These types of things are what we call “line items”. Addendums to bills that have nothing to with the issue at hand and yet the president is forced to accept them if he really wants the larger body of the bill. The other side of the isle often uses the fact that the president signed the bill as proof that he thought that particular line item was a good idea. George Bush’s signing into law the ban on incandescent bulbs is the latest example of this.
The republicans say that what the president needs is a “Line Item Veto”, or the power to veto each added line item of a bill individually. The Democrats say that it would put too much power in the hands of the president. Besides, the democrats continue, these line items typically only add 2% to the federal budget – “ah, no big deal”. This cost is traditionally known as “Pork Barrel Spending”.
This last argument only takes into account such line items as “$6,000,000 for Native American arrow production in Oregon”. There is no way to truly measure the cost to the country of many of the other line items. It also does not take into account the corruption aspects, either.
 Even though I greatly despise this devious method of operation in Washington, I do agree with the democrats that “Line Item Veto” power would put to much power in the hands of the president. The minority party might not be able to get anything done in congress. Every little program they lobbied for for their state could be veto’ed while the presidents party gets everything they want for their state and more.
There are better ways to fix this problem than by adding power to the executive branch. How about this approach?

1. Single issue bills only. No line items. End of story.
2. Add a section to the Federal Budget called the “Pork Barrel”.
3. Set the percentage of the “Pork Barrel” to 2% percentage of the Federal Budget (but no greater dollar amount than the current budget would allow)  + the percentage of decrease in the Federal debt year over year. This would give congress an incentive to decrease the debt every year.
4. Each year the final total for the Pork Barrel budget would be divided between the political parties in a ratio that matched the parties distribution in congress.
5. Each party would have no say in how the other party  divvies out their share. Each party would have to fight within itself for each member to get what they want.

This would put an end to the bribery of Washington “compromise”, give incentive for congress to reduce the debt each year, and prevent the “he supported” “she supported” BS that so muddies the political waters

School Vouchers? Not so fast...

The new school year started a couple of weeks ago for my children. I have four of them, one boy and three girls, and three of them are now in school. My oldest, the boy, was transitioning this year to the middle school as a sixth grader and his mother and I were having serious reservations. The middle school here has a very bad reputation. The word from most parents is that the school is run like a prison and the staff, principal and teachers included, are rude, obnoxious, and seem to care little about the students.

The atmosphere of the school and the tone of the administration was a bit worrying. The children could not talk at anytime save for lunch, during which they are allowed to talk very quietly. When moving between classes they were only allowed to move "clockwise" through the school building. Even if his next class is the next door down, counter-clockwise, he still had to go all the way around the building to get to it. The school said that this was done to prevent bullying.

What? All students have their education turned into a robotic, unsocial and unstimulating experience because a few students cannot control themselves?

I guess I should not have been too surprised. When my son was in fourth grade he was bullied extensively on the school bus by an older and much bigger fifth grader. After several complaints to the school the bus driver decided that the best solution was to force my son to sit by himself in the front of the bus, away from his friends, to "protect" him from this bully. The bully, however, was allowed to keep sitting in the back of the bus with his friends where they continued bullying the other smaller students on the bus. When I heard about this I made a visit to the principal of the school. She never like me very much after that visit for some reason....

After talking things over with my wife we decided to pull him out of the middle school and home school him before he got too far into the new school year. Especially since the main reason for sending him to the public school - socialization - was completely missing from the environment.

So, we embarked on our first home schooling experience. The first thing my wife did was to test him to see where he was at. As I expected, he tested a full grade ahead in language arts - he was always a good reader. His math skills were not quite that far ahead but it was hard to tell for certain since the test we were using contained math for the 5th Grade level that my son had never seen while in the fifth grade. He also seemed to be emotionally struggling more with this test. He was complaining more and acting like he just could not understand simple directions on the test. Things that we knew were not above his understanding. We sat him down and asked him what was going on. His answers were all childish, nonsensical arguments about the test and why he could not understand it. My wife and I were totally baffled. Finally, my wife asked him if he was acting this way because he wanted to go back to the public school.

"No!" he insisted and, after a brief pause, tears began to stream down his face. The underlying frustration in him was obvious. He started towards his bedroom, he did not want his sisters to come in and see him crying. I stopped him and looked to wife and mouthed "privacy" as I headed towards our bedroom with him in tow. She shook her head yes and quickly followed us in, shutting the door behind her.

Without going further into the ensuing conversation it turned out that my son was having trouble simply asking for help. He did not want to leave any of the math questions unanswered since they were supposed to be 4th and 5th grade questions and he was now a big 6th grader. He could not stand the idea of not being able to understand some of the 4th grade questions and many of the 5th grade questions and wanted help - mainly on the meaning of certain terms that he was not familiar with.

Now, here is the amazing part. He told us that he had learned that he had to play dumb while in elementary school in order to get help!

He was always considered to be one of the "smart" kids since he could read on a third grade level in kindergarten, was in the special "PACE" classes for exceptionally bright children, and was always on the "A" honor roll ("A&B" honor roll in 5th grade). The teachers, thinking he was so exceptionally smart, ignored his request for help in class and spent their time helping the children that they thought needed it the most. So he learned that if he acted dumb then the teachers would give him more help when he truly needed it!

This, in a nutshell, is what happens when the schools cater to the lowest common denominator. School children get dragged down to that level rather than the slower children being lifted up. Our schools should be challenging the students, all of them. The liberals believe that no child should feel bad and all children should feel equal. Although I understand the basic feelings that are behind this their methods of achieving it are completely wrong and detrimental to our children.

Conservatives seem to think that the school voucher program is the best way to go. With a school voucher system parents could send their kids to any school they wanted to. They could send them to a "better" public school or even a private school. According to conservatives this would stimulate competition and force bad schools to improve. The thing is, the school voucher program would only be useful for a few select families. I am physical conservative who usually votes republican but I am by no means wealthy. I am not struggling to pay my bills but it is nearly a paycheck to paycheck existence. I cannot afford to drive my children back and forth everyday to the next nearest school. The cost in gasoline alone would be staggering. A school voucher program would be useless for me and many others, I'm sure.

What we need is greater freedom within the schools.  Freedom "from" intrusive school boards that think they know what is best for our children. Freedom "from" administrators with condescending, know it all attitudes. Let’s give the parents of the schools real power. Freedom from the federal and state government telling us exactly what our children "need". We could give real power to the parents - like the "PTA" but with actual authority. If parents knew that the PTA had actual voting power, power to change the way the school is run and the freedom to involve themselves in the daily school process as needed then we might actually begin to see some changes.

It would not be a lovely bed of roses overnight but eventually new methods of teaching our children would evolve that would shine above the rest. The parents, seeing those other methods working elsewhere, would quickly bring those methods to their schools. Parents would work much faster than the bloated bureaucracy of our school systems. And, just maybe, future students would find school to be an enjoyable and stimulating experience.