Misundereducated

By Benjamin Mumma
This article appears in the November 2008 edition of the Lehigh Patriot.

www.lehighpatriot.com

Education plays a critical role in every nation’s development. Just as leaders today make decisions based upon their past education, the leaders of tomorrow will formulate their actions based on what they learn today. Our future depends on the education of today to produce a well-informed and educated generation.

The problem is, this isn’t happening. Americans are being misundereducated. (Yes, I just created this word. It works; think about it.) Even the politicians can agree on this, yet they aren’t really working on fixing anything. In international testing, the United States ranks below most other developed nations. The question that citizens and politicians both need to answer is: How do we repair America’s education system?

A good education is one of the best indicators of a person’s financial and emotional well-being in life. In addition to a higher income, well educated people divorce less, are less likely to smoke, and are less likely to have physical or mental health problems. When you apply these facts to a nation of over 300 million people, the effects are astounding. Children develop better when they have both parents available. Cigarettes cause an estimated 440,000 premature deaths each year, and each year tobacco products cause an estimated $150 billion in medical care costs and lost productivity(1) . Minimizing these problems and maximizing the benefits of a better-educated populous will result in exponential advancement of our society in the future.

This much everyone can agree upon. Democrats and Republicans alike agree that our education system is broken, and that rebuilding it is vital to the current and future success of our nation. Where they disagree, however, are the means by which to make this happen. However, before we can aid the failing education system, we need to understand why it is ineffective. In this case there are three main problems.

The Three Main Problems

First, the inequality in the system means that good students often get stuck in bad schools with no other recourse to find a better education. There are millions of students attending inner-city schools with great potential to learn, grow, and succeed who aren’t given the chance. Quite simply, their schools lack the proper learning environment. The current environment breeds underserved students and teachers who eventually learn not to care. Businesses that fail to provide adequate services to their customers go bankrupt. But when it comes to education, the government requires students to “buy” a poor product whether they want to or not. The proposition they provide is: attend the failing, inadequate school or pay thousands per year to switch.

This lack of choice provides unequal rights since your education is based upon how much money a family earns. Families who are well off and live in a bad school district can pay to send their children to private school. Meanwhile, a neighboring family that lives paycheck to paycheck will have no other option but to send their child to that failing local school. Over generations, the better-educated family gradually acquires more wealth, while the poorly educated family must continue on a path of low-paying menial jobs. When you look at the inequality between classes and races, a recurring theme with the Democrats, the cause is the inequality in education.

Second, the current system does not incentivize well-qualified people to become teachers. Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama support higher pay for teachers in an effort to combat this issue(2)(3), but that won’t work by itself. Too many inept teachers who are firmly entrenched in the current education system have secured their jobs through tenure. This presents a huge barrier to the influx of good teachers. A single weak link in the process of educating children inhibits all teachers’ ability to educate.

So let’s look at education as a group assignment. The assignment is to educate the students, and each group member (teacher) takes a specialized task along the way. If everyone is competent, this will work magnificently. But as I mentioned before, the system has bad teachers entrenched throughout the school. Intelligent people avoid these groups (education systems) at all costs. No one wants to teach calculus to students who don’t understand algebra.

Finally, the third problem, which actually causes the other two, is that the system lacks competition. Each public elementary and secondary school in this country is effectively a monopoly. Compared to free markets, monopolies often provide expensive yet inferior products. Anyone who has used Microsoft Windows Vista can experience the pain of inadequate competition first hand. Money can’t fix this problem in education, 

because more money does not provide an incentive to succeed. Empirical data backs this up, as seen in Figure 1.

Believe it or not, we do have an example right here in the United States that illustrates how well competition can improve education. The higher education system of the United States thrives on competition. For hundreds of years, Ivy League schools have been competing against each other for students. It is no coincidence that, for many years, these same schools have been providing the premier education in the world. In fact, the entire higher education system in the United States is the best in the world.

The United States has a tradition of personal freedoms that is the very foundation of this country. But, in education, the government does not act in accordance with that principle. For every other product, if a customer receives an inferior product item, they can return it and shop somewhere else. If your doctor doesn’t stick the needles in the right place, you can switch doctors. If your local grocery store sells moldy bread, you can shop somewhere else. These freedoms and the free market are the reason why the U.S. is where it is today. But, when it comes to education, only those who have thousands of dollars to spare every year can switch. This monopolistic system that throws competition out the window is the cause of inferior education in America, and it is what we must revamp.

The Solution

The solution to failing educational systems is simple: eliminate the monopoly. Let schools compete for students through a voucher program or a tax credit program. This seems scary: Democrats fear that already troubled schools will fail further, and that the whole system will dissolve into chaos. Opponents call school vouchers “a dangerous experiment.” But this is effectively the way that businesses in the U.S economy have been running for over 200 years. That dangerous experiment worked out fairly well. A transition to school choice won’t be quick, easy, or without flaws, but it will be worthwhile. To illustrate this, just look at where the United States ranks in education. When the 

government sets up a monopoly, the U.S. is 20th among developed nations. When the free market runs education, the U.S. has the best education in the world(4).

The problems that I’ve mentioned will be solved at varying rates. Most importantly, inequality in education would be eliminated. With a school choice program, parents who live in underperforming districts could send their children to a better school. Just like that, students stuck at an inadequate school would be able to go elsewhere. Families that value education and children who want to learn will be able to, instead of being trapped as a capable student in a failing school.

Also, the lack of competition would, by definition, be solved. Currently, some competition exists in private schools, but it is such an expensive alternative that it is not a consideration for most ordinary families. Interestingly, many D.C. politicians opt to send their children to private schools. The increased competition provided by school choice would force schools to improve their education quality, and steadily improve the state of American schools.

Finally, school choice would also work to inject the education system with more qualified teachers. As mentioned earlier, the current system does not encourage competent people to become teachers. School choice would increase competition, and force schools to spend more money on the most important resource in education: strong teachers. With increased competition for above average teachers come higher wages, and quite simply a more attractive job offering. Changing the teachers in the system would take time, but this is one problem that the government simply cannot solve without the help of free markets.

The end of the argument for school choice links right back to the beginning. Many of the large problems in America today – crime, poverty, drug use, and smoking – are caused, in large proportion, by a lack of education. Improvements in education will bring improvements in those areas too. Even small decreases in crime, drugs, and smoking, along with an increase in efficiency and productivity that results from improved education will net our country billions of dollars over time. Include with that monetary bonus of improved relationships between different classes and races brought about by a better-educated populous, and the rewards clearly justify the risks.

School choice has been an argument of contention in Washington. The American Federation of Teachers, AFT, is a 1.4 million member strong union that opposes school vouchers and generally supports Democrats(5). With 1.4 million votes with which to lobby, Democrats will not make the decision that needs to be made. They rely on the ambivalence of the American people to protect them as they cash in on support from those who benefit from keeping a failing system in place. Unless people stand up on principle and speak out overwhelmingly in favor of school choice, little will be done in the near future and our nation’s problems will continue to grow. 

Education plays such a vital role in a child’s development that people need to stand up for their rights. School choice is far too important for our nation’s success for it to be in the hands of unions comprised of largely inept educators and the vote-seeking politicians who pander to them.

(1):   http://no-smoking.org/may02/05-10-02-2.html
(2):   http://www.johnmccain.com/
(3):   http://www.barackobama.com
(4):   See figure 2 and figure 3 sources
(5):   http://www.aft.org/

An Engineer's Dream

By Benjamin Mumma
This article appears in the November 2008 Edition of the Lehigh Patriot

www.lehighpatriot.com

As a general rule, planning your class load for next semester is stressful. There are requirements to fill, time conflicts to worry about, and logging in at 10:00 pm with 1,000 other people (full disclosure: the author logs in at 9:30). With all of that said, you still have to avoid any class that starts at 8:00 AM and any class with a professor who says “uh” way too many times.

So who needs that? Certainly not me, so I decided to create as stress-free a schedule as I could. I got a headache just looking at my 19-credit schedule I had planned. Who needs to stay up until 3:00 AM every night? Forget about graduating in four years – I deserve a break. If you feel as I do, please feel free to join me on this standard fifteen-credit schedule which will provide an enlightening view to how others at Lehigh are able to live in luxury.

Mondays, I will be waking up bright and early to attend Introduction to Acting from 1:10 – 3:00 PM. What better way to unwind from a stressful Monday morning than to just pretend to be someone else for a few hours? The fact that I receive credit for this is a bonus! Following that adventure, I will be taking a long nap to prepare for my Tuesday.

On Tuesday, I start classes at 9:20. It will be difficult waking up that early, but I had to fit PHIL 220, Theory of Knowledge into my schedule. This class helps to answer the challenging questions in life, such as: “If you can’t know whether you are dreaming, how can you know you have two hands?” When I saw this entry in the course catalog, I knew this class was for me. I mean, just think about it: you may count two hands now, but what if you are actually dreaming that you have two hands? You could have one hand, or three hands, or 80 hands! This line of logic could go on forever.

Sadly, my Tuesday is not yet a fait accompli. Next, I will be moving on to Introduction to Marketing. The goal of this class is “to expose students to the meaning of marketing, the terminology of marketing, the activities involved in marketing,” and some other stuff. Enticing people to buy things they don’t need and can’t afford is part of what has made our economy the best in the world. Keep in mind that these are the geniuses that convince us every day to buy water in a bottle. Now I can be a part of that noble movement.

After a quick lunch, my brutal Tuesday continues. From 1:10 – 4:00 I will be taking a new course for the semester, Engendering “Black” Popular Culture: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Representation. This class promises to “explain the role of the U.S. media in enabling, facilitating, or challenging the social constructions of ‘Blackness.’” As a joint offering from the Africana Studies and Women Studies departments, it will give me the open-mindedness to intelligently discuss the critical social and civil rights issues of the 21st century. It will be interesting, because I don’t even know how to engender something. Plus, I never heard the media tell me how Black I was, but I’m sure other people have different experiences.

So that concludes my Tuesday. Fortunately, on Wednesday, I can relieve some stress by sleeping in until noon and then acting for two hours. Thursday, however, I will have to count my hands again to make sure that I’m not dreaming (even the description scrambles my brain – this is going to be a challenge). That’s okay, though; at that point, I will be one class away from the weekend. After a quick marketing class, my weekend will commence at noon on Thursday.

Over the 72 hour weekend, I will have to find time to complete my homework, read textbooks, write papers, and ponder my “Blackness,” engendering, and the number of hands I have.

This may not be as much of a walk in the park as I first expected.

Words of Inaction

By Benjamin Mumma
This article appears in the October 2008 Edition of the Lehigh Patriot.
www.lehighpatriot.com

Election year politics always provide a tremendous amount of political banter on both sides. While following this year’s contest, I have read countless well-thought and articulate articles on the current political climate. By perusing many articles each day, representing both sides of our nation’s great left-right divide, I’ve discovered a lot about how politics really works. The insights that I’ve gained make it extremely challenging to write about any concrete political situation for several reasons. Thus far, I feel that I’ve found out a lot about how the U.S. political system currently works. In the media you’ll hear the party lines, the political commentary, and the candidate’s talking points. But that isn’t the analysis that matters. If you can see through all of the smokescreens politicians set up, there is one overarching theme: words don’t matter.

That words do not mean anything in politics isn’t a new theme, and I am hardly being original in pointing this out. For the sake of argument, let me give you two examples: abortion and the war in Iraq. Republicans are, by-and-large, against legal abortions. They, as well as the Democrats, love to use their pro- or anti- abortion stance as a talking point. But it has been 35 years since Roe v. Wade, and what has the Republican Party seriously done on a national level about making abortions illegal? Not much. For religious reasons, many Republicans feel that it is an imperative to produce pro-life candidates for national office. In the primaries, Mitt Romney did his best to adapt (flip-flop) his position on legalized abortion. Similarly many Democrats, such as Pennsylvania’s junior senator Bob Casey, have tapped the pro-life voting pool by being Democrats who support restrictions on abortion rights. Some politicians may actually care about whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned. But few will rank it as more important than staying in office, and even fewer will specifically devote political capital to the cause.

On the other side, there is the war in Iraq. War is inherently awful, and it is a sad statement of reality that even for a nation like ours, war is a necessity in some situations. Was the war in Iraq necessary? In hindsight, it probably was not. Those two facts have made the war extremely unpopular, and those on the left of the political spectrum were calling for us to withdraw from a nation we had just torn apart. Democratic politicians used this to their advantage and spoke out against the war in order to raise money and obtain votes. Did any of them actually want us to withdraw? The answer to that is ‘no’. Anyone who views the world minus the influence of mind-altering drugs realizes it would be very dangerous to just pick up and leave Iraq before it is stabilized. Barack Obama has altered his stance away from that extremist view he took in the primaries. He now effectively says the same thing as everyone else: let’s win the war and get our troops out as quickly as possible. Politicians will pay lip-service to their bases by favoring immediate withdrawal; but again they fail to devote any political capital to the cause.

The fact that political actions do not follow political verbiage makes analyzing political conversations extremely difficult. Analyzing their words is great if you want to produce a work of fiction, but that hardly makes it possible to discern their true motives, and that doesn’t work well if you want to find out what the politicians are actually going to do. But suggesting that Mr. or Mrs. Politician is insincere invites attacks from all across the political spectrum. Thus, the cable news networks, talk radio, and political commentators everywhere, mainly analyze a situation based on what politicians say. The media does this because it either pleases or aggravates every politically active person watching, which of course drives the ratings. Comments made every day by people like Sean Hannity and Keith Olbermann purposefully highlight the divisive parts of the other side’s platform. This doesn’t provide rational analysis, but instead breeds angry comments and irrational responses.

Knowing that so many Republicans and Democrats will say whatever they need to in order to secure their popularity and office really diminishes partisan politics, and its analysis. I have attacked Democrats for supporting higher taxes on the rich simply to obtain the votes of the poor, and doing so at the peril of our economy and our country’s future. But what does that attack really mean if Republicans talk about limited government in order to obtain votes, and then either do nothing about or even aid the expansion of our awful bureaucracy at the peril of our economy and our country’s future?

The hypocrisy of both parties is astounding. Democrats have made huge political gains by victimizing, and offering to help, the poor by going after the rich. But right now Democrats are the only ones standing in the way of offshore drilling, which would provide relief for lower-income families who are paying a significant portion of their income in transportation costs. Republicans in office all talk about hating the bureaucracy in Washington and wanting to reduce it, but they haven’t done diddlysquat about it. The best analysis of the current situation of American politics isn’t necessarily exciting, or even controversial, and it is certainly not enough to fill up the schedule of 24-hour news channels.

Finally, playing these partisan games does nothing but sharpen the divide between the ideological bases. It produces a vicious cycle where the attacks become sharper and sharper, distracting everyone from the facts on which a decision should be based. This problem has gotten so severe that humane and even reasonably intelligent discourse of politics between conservatives and liberals has become almost non-existent. Commentators on each side have become more and more brutal in their attacks on the other point of view.

Each side blames the other not just for initiating the fight, but continuing it. In the campaign so far, McCain has used some pretty nasty and devious tactics against Barack Obama. Obama has done the exact same thing to McCain. Arguing over who started it is something six-year-olds do. Both have recognized that negative campaigning is effective, and so each has used negative tactics. Both sides now love to claim the other side is full of evil, intolerant, and stupid people. Lost in the rhetoric is the fact that we are all Americans, and we all want what is best for this country. There’s just a bit of a disagreement about the best route to take. MapQuest can only get you so far.[1]

So what does all this mean with respect to the election? Whoever is elected, Barack Obama or John McCain, will attempt to do what is best for the country, without giving up too many votes. It has been plain for months now that neither of these candidates are the mythical political beast who could care less about getting re-elected. But both candidates are Americans, and both candidates truly want what is best for this country. In deciding who to vote for we need to look for someone whose actions, not words, speak most strongly to a candidate who is able to serve Americans, and not his own political interests.

This year that man is a Republican. It won’t always be the case, but you don’t have to dig too deeply to find evidence that John McCain puts the collective good of America first. His time in the Vietnamese POW camp, and his refusal of early release speaks more strongly to his character and values than any combination of words can. For a full account of his story I encourage you to read Senator McCain’s first-hand account from U.S. News and World Report.[2] Also, McCain has opposed his party, and tried to actually pass meaningful legislation. McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform, as well as the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill, was co-sponsored by a prominent Democratic Senator. In both cases he angered his voting base, knowing that he would eventually have a presidential primary coming up where those bills would haunt him. But it speaks to a man that has his priorities straight as a public servant: America should come first.

Barack Obama on the other hand, has only tried to differentiate himself with words. His actions so far have been so innately and brilliantly political that he has been able to use words to create the impression that he is above politics. His entire political career up until this point has been playing to the extremist portion of his party from which he gets his support, money, and volunteers. His documented connections to Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers[3] show the people he will associate with for political gain. Also, his voting record in the Senate, which was ranked as the most liberal of anyone in 2007[4], shows how he has played to the Democrat’s enthusiastic base. Only now has he moderated his views, best seen as I mentioned earlier on Iraq but also in reference to energy, taxes, and foreign policy as he attempts to win over independents. He has done all of this extremely well, and has played the political game as well as anyone. He very well may have the character and a coherent set of values on the level of John McCain. But he has not proven this yet. And the president, above all, must be someone who can make the right choice even if it’s not the popular one.

So while considering the election this November, think about the character of the two candidates. They are both intelligent, they are both capable, and they both want what is best for this country. You may disagree with Senator McCain on some issues, but as I have proven, the candidates’ talking points matter very little. Remembering that the actual amount of meaningful legislation destined to be passed in the next four years will be very small, I hope that many of you can set aside your disagreements with McCain’s policies as I have, and vote for him in November. As the candidate who is best suited to step above politics, he is the person who America needs making the decisions that will surely have a profound impact on our future as a nation.

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[1] MapQuest, http://www.mapquest.com/politicalunity

[2] “John McCain, Prisoner of War: A First-Person Account”. John McCain. U.S. News and World Report, May 1973. http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.html

[3] “Wright Connection”. Michael Barone. National Review Online, May 24^th, 2008. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODU3MjJlNDgwNWNhODhmN2IwYWFjNzZmNGJiMzUwYTE

[4] “Obama: Most Liberal Senator In 2007”. Friel et al. National Journal, January 31^st, 2008. http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/

Sanity Lost

By Benjamin Mumma
This article appears in the October 2008 Edition of the Lehigh Patriot.
www.lehighpatriot.com

Sometimes, convincing someone to cast their vote for you is quite challenging. I learned this in those intense middle school elections of simpler days now long past. If it weren’t for Sarah and her seemingly endless supply of Jolly Rancher lollipops things might be different. Those grape ones were so tasty! As I quickly learned, elections can be tricky business if you don’t have the required political or sugar capital.

Politicians have learned this too. Unlike myself though, they had sneaky solutions to the bombardment of proverbial Jolly Ranchers that they faced. Candy didn’t taste as good when it came from a pedophile, or a pervert, or a womanizer. This was the good old politics of the past. Today, due to those pesky reporters, mudslinging must at least have some basis in fact. Nonetheless, some of today’s “leaked” stories can carry just as much bite as the politics of old.

Now you may not have many more elections ahead of you, but certainly you will be fighting for a wife or a husband, a job, a promotion, an apartment, or really anything else. And when you know you can’t beat your opponent based on your own merits, your best bet is to learn from the politicians. Here are the five lessons you can take to heart when considering how to defeat your opponent, tried and tested by politicians of every political party:

1. Your opponent has broken every one of the Ten Commandments.

Now-a-days, this attack probably wouldn’t even matter to the public. Other than number six, breaking the other nine commandments is basically cool. Stealing, adultery, false witness, coveting your neighbor’s spouse, and not keeping the Sabbath holy are all fairly common. But back in 1844 this was serious. James Polk’s campaign told voters that Henry Clay had indeed “broken everyone of the Ten Commandments,” and that “his debaucheries… [are] too disgusting to appear in public print.” Nevertheless, Clay still won 48 percent of the popular vote. The lesson: this probably isn’t the best way to attack your opponent – today this could be a net positive.

2. Your opponent is a pimp, or his mother is a prostitute.

These two attacks are obviously radically different, though a combination of the two would be rather disgusting. I digress. These political punches were actually counters to each other during the lovely campaign of 1828 between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. Jackson supporters accused Adams of “providing entertainment” for Russian Czar Alexander I, and later Adams supporters called Jackson’s mother “a common prostitute.” Jackson ended up winning 56 percent of the popular vote. The lesson: It’s better to be the son of a prostitute than to be a pimp.

3. Your opponent is a coward.

Franklin Pierce was a general during the Mexican-American war. Being from New Hampshire, he wasn’t used to the heat, and he collapsed from heat prostration during a battle. When it came time to run for President, Franklin Pierce was named “the Fainting General” by opponents. Even with that stigma on his name, he still won all but four states. Americans have since learned not to tolerate military cowardice, and did not elect John Kerry in 2004 after his bravery in the military was questioned by some of his fellow swift-boat veterans. The lesson: if you are going to join the U.S. armed forces, show no fear.

4. Your opponent is just ugly.

As could be expected in the turbulent years leading up to the Civil War, the North-South divide caused some heated discussion. As a Northerner, Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a favorite politician in the South. In fact, he won a majority of the electoral college without even being on the ballot in many southern states. It’s easy to understand why: according to the Houston Telegraph, he was the “most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame”. The lesson: let your opponent’s ugliness work on its own, pointing it out won’t help you much.

5. Your opponent has an illegitimate child.

This rumor, about Senator McCain, was brought up during the Bush-McCain primaries in 2000. McCain’s daughter Bridget was actually adopted from an orphanage in Bangladesh by McCain and his wife Cindy. But by anonymous polling, the Bush campaign suggested that McCain was Bridget’s biological father. Bush then went on to win the Republican primary. Thankfully in the general election, Bush didn’t need such smear tactics: they just hid a couple thousand ballots from Floridians and then paid off the Supreme Court. The lesson: smear tactics are great, but bribes and sneaky cheating can be just as effective.

Sources:

“A Historical Perspective on Presidential Campaigns”. Dr. Ken Stevens, 2003. http://www.his.tcu.edu/Frog&Globe/SiteArchives/Stevens-Elections.htm

(Quotes used for examples of mudslinging 1-4 were from this document)

“The Anatomy of a Smear Campaign”. Richard Davis. The Boston Globe, March 21^st, 2004. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/21/the_anatomy_of_a_smear_campaign/

(Information on example of mudslinging 5 were from this article)

Thank You, Barack

By Benjamin Mumma
Originally Published: August 4th, 2008

I just wanted to say that you have changed my life. No brother, this isn’t sarcasm. This is real. I know I’ve dissed you in the past, but give me a chance. I’ve changed, and it’s all because of the hope that you inspired within me.

There I was, just some kid, working hard in school, setting high goals for myself, trying to succeed and be happy. All I saw was the long, tough, and uphill road against me. It was hopeless. What could I do against such odds? Everyone was out to get me – the corporations, the rich, the outsourcers, the speculators, the planet warmers. Then I saw you, Barack. You had fought against not just all that, but all the white men who sought to bring you down, and Hillary Clinton. You gave me hope.

But before long I realized that I am nowhere near as good as you are. I’m not as handsome, articulate, athletic, intelligent, or as God-damn America(n) as you. Seeing you was the first time that I just knew that I could not succeed in life. How could I, when there are people as great as you out there, and with everyone else out to get me. I just knew I couldn’t win.

So I gave up. It was hard, my life had no hope. I needed something – anything – to change. It was at that time that your words gave me hope that change was coming, and my path became brilliantly clear – like solar powered light bulbs were lighting the way through the night. It was a poetic moment in time.

Your words made it clear why I must vote for you. Since I now know that I will never amount to anything, I have to put my fate into your hands. It’s the only way. You’ll take down those bullying corporations, and rich people, and everyone else. You’ll take them down – you said so Barack. Then you’ll give rewards back to me. Now I won’t even have to worry about succeeding. I won’t have to work for health care – you’ll give it to me, just like you’ll give it to the illegal immigrants. All my social security will be in the government’s hands, where I know it’ll be safe. When I want to buy a house, I’ll just take out a loan I can’t afford to pay, then when the bank has to foreclose, you’ll just bail me out. You’ll be so great and powerful that when I sweat, you’ll even stop the planet from warming.

Barack, you’ve made my path clear. Ambition and goals are for fools, I realize that now. All I need to do to be happy in life is vote for you. Doing that will let you take care of everything for me. You were the change that I needed. I don’t have to work so hard anymore – I don’t have to succeed. Success makes you rich. Rich makes you evil. You taught me that, Barack, and that’s not the path I want to go on.

You’ve changed my life Barack. On behalf of myself, and the millions of others who have come to this enlightened conclusion, I just want to say one thing. Thank You, Barack. You were the change that I hoped for. Life’s not supposed to be tough. Your inspirational effect on me has made me a changed man. Voting for you will be a pleasure – no – an honor. For this is the dawning of a new era in my life, and in the life of this country. Thank you, Barack.

In Dependence Day

By Benjamin Mumma
Originally Published: April 2008
http://www.lehighpatriot.com/issues/article.php?id=63

Fireworks, parties, pools, family and friends, a warm summer night, and beer (especially when combined with the fireworks!): all of these combine to represent a holiday that truly expresses America’s greatness. July fourth, Independence Day, is a great holiday. I don’t know too many people who have a problem with it. Who can complain about mixing alcohol and explosives? I’m not going to. But I do have a problem with Independence Day, or more particularly, the hypocrisy that its name is beginning to represent. Can Americans still celebrate Independence Day in good faith? Does the average American still want to be independent? My thesis is no, but I should probably explain where I’m coming from first.

Forget the historical backdrop of July fourth for a minute. What does the word ‘Independence’ mean? Independence is defined as freedom from influence, support, or aid of others. As a college student, I’ve come to understand what it means. While learning is a critical part of college, an equally vital element is learning how to be independent. The freedom of college results in an equal amount of responsibility, but I think we can all agree that this is a good thing. I know sometimes it’s a pain to always be responsible for your own decisions, but think about it: is there anyone you would rather rely on other than yourself? In case you can’t decide, some very brave colonists very considerately made that decision over 200 years ago. That decision maintains its relevance to this day.

On July 4^th, 1776 a large group of America’s founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. America had finally concluded that running its own show would produce far greater results than someone else doing it for them. We decided to rely on ourselves first and foremost, above anyone else. The rest of that story is history, and we remember that with a celebration on the very same day every year. Is the independence of a state any different than the independence of a person? In some respects it is, but in many ways they are one in the same. Colonists first came here seeking religious freedom, and our initial problems with the British occurred when excessive taxes were placed upon us, and trade was restricted. At the time, it wasn’t just the colonies that were dependent on the British. Every single colonist was dependent on the British government. We, understandably, didn’t like that too much.

Now, 232 years later, we are forgetting this vital lesson. Dependence is a term thrown around a lot – dependence on foreign oil, dependence on drugs or alcohol, dependence on cheap foreign imports – you get my point. But the dependency I’m worried about is different, but much more dangerous and insidious. Americans are becoming dependent upon our very own government. How are most American’s planning for retirement? The government takes care of it. How do many American’s hope to get their healthcare? Why, the government should take care of that as well! The list goes on and on. The great irony here is that the politicians absolutely adore having a bunch of whiny babies at home in need of constant attention. In case you missed it, we are the whining babies.

The saddest part of the story though, is that we weren’t always like this. It was only 40 some years ago that John F. Kennedy told all Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Today, his self-proclaimed protégé, Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama, is calling for the government to provide health care for everyone. In fact, he’s calling for the government to intervene in almost every aspect of the economy that you can imagine. This isn’t conservative propaganda – just take a look at his own website, ignore the rhetoric, and ask yourself, “If we implement what he suggests here, will the government be in charge of more, or less?” Overwhelmingly, the answer to that will be more government run programs, funds, and regulatory commissions. John McCain isn’t free of guilt either, since he’d love to have the government be in charge of more aspects of American’s everyday lives as well. However, he does earn some points via his proven record of fighting against pork-barreling. Still, all we get from our leaders are promises of how the government is going to help us. Isn’t that an ironic turn from JFK’s attitude just over 40 years ago? The worst part is, we are gobbling this up. We love it! And why shouldn’t we, right? We’ll get all this cool stuff, and we don’t even have to pay for it!

Well, just like all those free laptops and ipods that you always seem to win on the internet, this is too good to be true as well. The first lesson that I learned in life is that nothing good ever comes free. But it’s true. It applies to those laptops and ipods, and it most certainly applies to all these government programs too. Even worse, the cost of government programs for us isn’t flat. As everyone knows, increasing taxes places a large burden on the economy. So too, as we’ve seen, does a monstrous deficit, rather like the one we have right now. That’s just the flat cost.

The real harm comes in the future. When kids are given everything they ask for by their loving parents, is there an incentive to work hard for something they want? Why work hard? They know with a little bit of whining, or sweet-talking, or another persuasion method, they can get whatever they desire without lifting a finger. We, as Americans, are becoming these spoiled kids, as we are ‘given’ more and more by our government. That is the real problem with the government ‘giving’ us more and more. We will lose our incentive to work. Human beings are rational creatures, and we will work for what we need to be happy, and not much more. So when we give people most of what they need for basically nothing in return, the incentive disappears. With lost incentive comes lost productivity. Look at the fall of all the other great civilizations in history – it seems to be the fate we are destined for.

So here is the hypocrisy I alluded to at the beginning. How can we continue to celebrate Independence Day in good faith, when all we do is ask for more and more from our government? We hear promises from our politicians, and we just give them our votes. When was the last time you ever heard a politician saying ‘no’ to expensive ‘solutions’? America’s celebration of Independence is becoming a celebration of being In Dependence. Foreign oil, foreign goods, and alcohol – sure, we can celebrate those. But our new idol of dependence will be our government – there to solve all of our problems. Uncle Sam has decided it’s time for him to play Daddy Sam. Thank God too, because we’ve got a lot of problems. But seeing what our government has done in the past to fix Immigration, Social Security, and our Education system, makes me feel so much better.

My point, basically, is this: America is the greatest country in the world today because we have had a government that DID NOT solve our problems for us. We had to figure things out for ourselves. Just like a child needs to learn to do things on their own so do the citizens of a nation. We need this to be the attitude of every American. But it’s not, and we are moving further and further away from this ideal. So this Independence Day, before the beer and the fireworks, take a few steps back to ensure that you won’t be forced to be dependent on our government. Write a letter to your local Congressmen and your esteemed Senators, wish them a happy holiday, and tell them politely to stop making a bunch of new programs, and that you can, and would rather, handle these problems by yourself. Maybe even remind him of what JFK said a while back, and tell him that THAT is what you want.

A Hot Topic

By Benjamin Mumma
Originally Published: May 2008
http://www.lehighpatriot.com/issues/article.php?id=77

Apocalypses have always been cool. It’s just a fact of life. Would Will Smith be as cool as he is without his many apocalyptic thrillers such as Independence Day, Men In Black, and I Am Legend? I think not. The point is, if you are a group of people desperately in need of some popularity and attention, the best way to fix that is to start an apocalypse theory. It is with this fact in mind that our journey begins.

We will start with two groups of people who no one ever really paid attention to: climatologists and environmentalists. Climatologists have the difficult job of modeling and predicting the results of a system with no controllable variables. Environmentalists have the equally difficult job of convincing everyone around them to act with regards to possible future effects as opposed to definite immediate effects. Looking at what both groups are trying to do, it’s no wonder they’ve both been shunned in the past.

Environmentalists and climatologists are smart people, and they didn’t like the fact that no one was paying attention to them. Far off, in a remote forest in Oregon, they decided to team up and hatch their world domination plan. They collaborated for hours, pondering the best way to make sure that the world would listen to what they had to say. The two groups seemed to be a perfect match, and about nine months later, Global Warming was born.

Global Warming, GW for short, was a great kid. He was much cuter and warmer than all the other celebrity babies, and he was universally loved. But with Global Warming’s fame and fortune came the inevitable rise of its parents into the mainstream media spotlight. Climatologists shouted out the news that GW was the fulfillment of a prophecy which stated that as soon as a child was born out of two androgynous entities that a great heat wave would melt all ice, and force everyone to drink warm lemonade. Oh, all that ice melting would also flood the costal regions of the world, where 90 percent of the world’s population resides. Then, the Environmentalists appeared with their well-crafted answer of what everyone could do to prevent this prophecy that GW had brought with him. Finally, the whole world would be compelled to heed the predictions of the climatologists, and follow the environmentalist’s Ten Commandments. Their diabolical plan had worked.

The preceding story is obviously not real, but it does serve a very important purpose. The essence of the story is that the motives of the architects behind global warming need to be looked at. Sure, science is supposed to be above this. Science ought to be impartial and unbiased. But Scientists are human beings, and just like the rest of us, they are prone to pushing agendas without regarding the integrity of the claims behind their agenda. A perfect example of the attitude that is held by not all, but not just a handful of people in the global warming arena can be seen in the following quote of Stephen Schneider, the lead report author of the 2007 UN IPCC report on climate change:

“To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest.”

Look at it this way. If climatologists predicted that the world would be in good shape over the next 100 years and that everything would remain relatively stable, what do you think would happen to their funding? My guess is that their work would continue of course, but some funding would very likely be directed to many other branches of research. The problem with climatology is that it is not as precise, testable, or as promising as most other fields in science.

Global warming has been treated as a scientific fact. All three presidential candidates have talked about curbing emissions to reduce the warming, and a vast majority of the scientific community treats global warming as a fact. But sadly, nothing in science is a fact. All throughout history, science has had to update its theories. There was a time when spontaneous generation was an accepted scientific principle. The world was flat. The sun rotated around the earth. Light in space traveled through the ether. Just as we are sure that all of those ideas are wrong, we can be sure that there are scientific theories today that are blatantly false. This is why open discourse is needed on subjects, and those who challenge established ideas must be heard.

My rationale for questioning global warming mainly hinges upon how precise a science such as climatology can be. The main problem with climatology is that it is not testable. By that I mean that climatologists do not have at their disposal a way to control inputs and predict the results. Climate change models on computers mainly rely on historical data to predict future results. While this definitely has merits, it is impossible to test and verify data and relationships. You cannot state ideas as scientific fact when the only evidence is historical trends. History holds thousands of variables, and so while there may be a correlation, it does not necessarily mean dependence. Both variables could be dependent on a third variable, or on both a third and a fourth variable, and so on. That is why science designs experiments with only two variables.

Obviously, there is a scientific connection between emissions and the greenhouse effect. But in a system such as the earth where there are, again, thousands of variables, predicting the future is very difficult. In an article in 21^st Century Science and Technology in 2004, Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski asserts that solar cycles are the main factor in determining climate. This makes sense to me. Surely no one can assert that solar cycles don’t have any affect on our climate. Dr. Jaworoski’s conclusion is that we are heading into the next ice age, and that “This disaster will be incomparably more calamitous than all the doomsday prophecies of the proponents of the man-made global warming hypothesis.” He cites a fair number of other scientific articles which also speak of another ice age approaching. Read his article, and then read a piece on global warming and you will have no idea what the temperature change will be over the next 100 years.

The conflict between these two ideas is what brings me to my final point. If we don’t know for sure which way we are headed, then why are we looking to radically curtail economic growth in the name of preventing global warming? Should we waste less, recycle more, and provide incentives to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases through innovation? Absolutely. The problem is, environmental activists don’t just want that. They want us to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and even take more drastic measures. According to a 1999 study by two Yale economists, ratifying the Kyoto Protocol would result in an economic loss of $400,000,000,000 for the United States alone.

That’s a lot of money for us to simply give up on in the name of preventing something that may or may not happen. Furthermore, we don’t even know what climate would be best for earth. Warmer weather could result in longer growing seasons, allowing for more food to be produced. More importantly though, eventually we will have another Ice Age like the one we had 14,000 years ago, which covered all of modern day New York in ice. Such an Ice Age will devastate food production, and will, as Dr. Jaworoski concluded be much more dangerous than whatever humans can do through emissions. We may need some extra food saved up from a few years of very warm weather.

My point, basically, is this: global warming should not be blindly accepted as completely truthful, apocalyptic, and a need for action. Indeed, if it is true, and the most dangerous change in climate that we may face, then we should act. But for the reasons outlined here, as well as others that won’t quite fit into this article, I don’t believe that global warming is. Is the current warming trend going to continue? If it is, is this a bad thing? If it is, can we even hope to reverse it? If we can, is the damage prevented worth the costs? My answer to all of these questions is no, but I can understand the rationale behind answering yes to any of these. Look through these questions, do some research to find both sides of the issue, and then answer these four questions for yourself. But think about it, if you answer ‘No’ to any one of these questions, then you should not support the radical actions of all the remaining presidential candidates. We should care for the environment, but we cannot do this at the great expense posed by the current options. Giving Americans the time to come up with an innovative solution is a much more appropriate action given everything we truly know at this point. It is a shame that our next leader as President will not share this point of view.

Sources

Schneider quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schneider

Jaworoski article: http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf

Kyoto Economic article: http://www.econ.yale.edu/~nordhaus/homepage/Kyoto.pdf