DanKohn.com

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I am probably one of the few observers who is highly supportive of government money supporting school vouchers for parochial school while opposing “under God” in the pledge of allegiance. The common thread for both is my belief in the establishment clause of the Constitution, keeping government and religion separate.

It’s government’s responsibility is to ensure that all children are educated to a high standard, and that means providing funding when parents cannot do so. That also means no madrassas in the US teaching only the Koran (or the Bible or the Torah) and no science or math. But, in what other aspect of American life do we believe that the only way a product of sufficient quality can be delivered is by the government doing so itself? Healthcare, food, and automobiles are all essential to modern life, and so we expect the government to regulate aspects of their production. But we certainly do not think they need to be provided by the government. Public schools remain the last bastion of socialism in the US, and the results are comparable to socialist production failures throughout the last century.

So, why religious schools? Because parents deserve the right to send their children for the education they think is best. As long as the religious schools meet a high educational standard (and the vast majority exceed the education at public schools), they should be eligible for vouchers. Of course, if the religious schools become madrassa-like and don’t meet educational standards, then children should not be allowed to attend at all. As for those who worry about religious indoctrination, the best solution is to drastically increase the value of the vouchers so that parents have a real choice of non-religious private schools, which tend to cost much more. I believe that the vast majority of parents are choosing religious (generally Catholic) schools because they want a better education for their children, not because they want kids taught about transubstantiation and immaculate conception. Until we as a society move past the wishful thinking (and union pandering) associated with public school support and realize that education is important enough to drastically increase the funding for it, we should expect the same old pathetic results.

The WSJ has a nice critique of some of the biased reporting on the issue.

The only political issue more important to me than campaign finance reform is free trade (and specifically Trade Promotion Authority for the president), which it appears my representative, Silicon Valley’s Anna Eshoo, is about to help kill. Although there are obvious economic benefits to high-tech companies like those funded by my venture firm, my real reason for backing free trade is a moral one.

Reason has the definitive editorial on the pledge of allegiance:

Turns out that the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by a Christian socialist, Francis Bellamy — first cousin of Edward Looking Backward Bellamy — a hater of capitalism whose sermons about “Jesus the Socialist” got him fired from his Boston church. Turns out that before World War II, many school children recited the Pledge not with their hands over their hearts, but with their right arms outstretched toward the flag in a pose we now associate with fascist storm troopers. Turns out that until the 20^th century, the flag was rarely displayed in classrooms at all, and that the Pledge was part of a campaign by the ostensibly anti-capitalist owners of the magazine Youth’s Companion — where the Pledge first appeared — to sell a whole lot of flags to schools.

It goes on to note that a godless Pledge was “good enough for, say, the generation that fought World War II”.

This story, China Races to Replace U.S. as Economic Power in Asia, includes some of the worst economics ever written in the NYT:

Some see China’s economic thrust, more apparent now under its newly minted membership in the World Trade Organization, as the beginning of an inescapable process of China replacing the United States as the dominant power in Asia.

There are many things about China to worry about, such as their increasingly aggressive military posturing and their almost complete lack of respect for human rights. However, if you want China to become prosperous and democratic, support their economic engagement in the world, don’t use meaningless scare phrases such as “hungry importer”, “siphon of other nations’ foreign investment”, and a “surging exporter” that is “forcing its Asian neighbors to adjust.” One of the most basic lessons of the last 500 years of economic development is that economics is not a zero-sum game.

Eric Raymond quotes Michelle Efird’s declaration, a classic example of ha-ha-only-serious:

In a post 9-11 world, I feel it’s my duty as a woman to wear clingier clothing, flirt more outrageously, have more orgasms, and get on top more often. In short, anything that’s taboo to the islamofascists.

Michelle Efird now has her own blog, shellshocking.