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Stratfor reports on Middle East

2016-03-04T14:03:00.000-05:00

Syria: Airstrikes Hit Town Near Damascus, Activists Say

March 4, 2016 | 16:09 GMT

Airstrikes hit the rebel-controlled town of Douma, east of Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, AFP reported March 4. It unclear who carried out the airstrikes, although Douma has been a target for Syrian government forces throughout the civil war. Local activists via Facebook blamed Russia for the March 4 airstrikes, adding that the town was also being bombarded by heavy artillery. Despite a March 3 statement by U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura that progress is being made in Syria, numerous violations of the country's tenuous cease-fire have been reported.

Iraq: Thousands Protest Corruption Across Country

March 4, 2016 | 14:44 GMT

Large demonstrations are ongoing in Baghdad and in provinces across Iraq, with tens of thousands of people demanding government reforms and protesting state corruption, Alsumaria News reported March 4. In Baghdad, large crowds are gathered in front of the Green Zone. Demonstrations are reportedly taking place in Wasit, Karbala, Babil, Maysan, Basra and Najaf provinces as well. A large number of those taking part in the protests are said to be followers of influential Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr. Protesters are demanding change, but a proposed Cabinet reshuffle in Iraq risks upsetting the country's delicately balanced government.

Syria: Jabhat Al-Nusra Militants Fleeing To Iraq, Source Says

March 4, 2016 | 15:43 GMT

According to a Syrian military analyst, hundreds of fighters from al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra are fleeing Syria for Anbar and Salahuddin provinces in Iraq, with thousands more expected to follow. The fighters' relocation in Iraq will pose a major problem for Iraqi army and paramilitary forces, the analyst added. Stratfor was not able to verify the source's claims. Neither Jabhat al-Nusra nor the Islamic State are included in the patchwork cease-fire currently in place in Syria.

Torture and American Values

2015-09-13T11:08:00.000-04:00

The guy who argued that torture is perfectly legal

Last year, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence put out its report on the use of torture by the CIA in the years after the 2001 attacks. The executive summary of the report runs more than 300 pages, not including the notes, and lays out in excruciating detail the process by which the CIA -- the Government in general -- decided to torture more than 100 people over three years, and the methods used in the torture.

I am most interested in how we decided to abandon our traditional values and our stated policies and laws to behave in such systematically depraved ways. As the Senate report makes clear, many people, even within the CIA (not the most squeamish of entities) were made physically sick by what the "special interrogators" were doing. All the way up the chain of command, CIA and White House people explained the legal and moral problems with these "enhanced" methods. FBI investigators tried to convince the CIA that torture was unnecessary and even counterproductive. So why did the program go forward?

There appear to be two basic answers. First, the Office of Legal Counsel, led by John Yoo, convinced leadership that the methods did not contravene international or US law. People in the position to decide were too cowardly to resist the argument that because we were attacked, we had the right to do whatever we wanted, and Yoo gave them bureaucratic cover. Once the Washington Post got wind of certain practices and threatened to report them, these craven, immoral government hacks panicked and went back to OLC to be reassured that they would not be held accountable for their actions. Yoo promised they would be OK.

Second, two sadistic creeps masquerading as psychologists misapplied training given them by the Air Force to act out their own sick fantasies of power. John Mitchel and Bruce Jessen had been taught how to resist certain nasty interrogation techniques in the Air Force SERE program, but used that training in the opposite way, to be nasty themselves. Mitchell, misunderstanding the consequences and applications of "learned helplessness," decided that they could be used to get information from prisoners.

The two sadistic morons who conducted the CIA's torture program.

Mitchell was wrong, not just morally but factually and theoretically. That makes him an idiot as well as a sadist. That Jessen went along only means he became sidekick to a fool -- and what does that make him?

Our system, though, is supposed to prevent small-minded men like these from coming to positions of sufficient power to commit the evil they did. That's where we failed.

Clinton Said it Less Directly ...

2015-09-01T10:39:00.000-04:00

... and Mark Thiessen did no like it.

It's true that Trump does not employ violence or terrorism in his efforts to gain the White House. That's a big deal, of course. Hitler's avid use of literal terror and his active flaunting of the fact that the Weimar government was unable to stop him were the defining characteristics of the Nazi reign.

It's also true that Trump is appealing to the same crowd that liked Hitler -- aristocrats and politically disengaged masses -- using very similar rhetoric.

So let's be clear. ISIS really is like Hitler. Trump just sounds like him.

Sound Familiar?

2015-08-30T09:25:00.000-04:00

As long as we are on the subject, does this remind you of anyone?

He has no record of public service, but wants to gain the most powerful position in the country. He gains in popularity by tapping into the anger and resentment of an ethnic population that feels recently dispossessed of its cultural birthrights. He calls for the exclusion and prosecution of ethnic minorities within his country. His rhetoric emphasizes a patriotism of collective past greatness, and the need to return to that greatness. He has no particular policy proposals that make any sense, just grandiose and impractical declarations. He says that the system needs an outsider to tear it down and star again. The politicians around him are so embarrassed by his stridency and the notoriety it brings that they will not stand up to him and call him out for his practices.

Now, I know I will raise the ire of a whole lot of people by making this comparison, but it's time to shake off the political correctness Trump and his followers so detest and call things as they are.

So far, only because Trump has gained no power, he has done no serious damage. He probably would not and could not commit the atrocities executed by Hitler.

But Trump is following the playbook of the worst and most dangerous kind of demagogue. Taking him lightly is foolish. He needs to be put in his place by the Republican Party so we do not slip closer to the harm he could bring.

Have any doubts? I recommend to you Hannah Arendt, from Origins of Totalitarianism:

It has frequently been pointed out that totalitarian movements use and abuse democratic freedoms in order to abolish them. This is not just devilish cleverness on the part of the leaders or childish stupidity on the part of the masses. Democratic freedoms may be based on the equality of all citizens before the law; yet they acquire their meaning and function organically only where the citizens belong to and are respected by groups or form a social and political hierarchy…
Indifference to public affairs and, neutrality on political issues, are themselves not sufficient cause for the rise of totalitarian movements. The competitive and acquisitive society of the bourgeoisie had produced apathy and even hostility toward public life not only, and not even primarily, in the social strata that were exploited and excluded from active participation in the rule of the country, but first of all in its own class…Both the early apathy and the later demand for monopolistic dictatorial direction of the nation of the nation’s foreign affairs had their roots in a way and philosophy of life so insistently and exclusively centered on the individual’s success or failure in ruthless competition that a citizen’s duties and responsibilities could be felt to be a needless drain on his limited time and energy…

Schilling Owes No Apology

2015-08-26T10:12:00.000-04:00

ESPN baseball commentator Curt Schilling was suspended yesterday for a tweet in which he compared ISIS to Adolf Hitler. That's a silly, oversensitive thing to do.

ESPN's publicity antennae went off because Muslim and Jewish groups found the tweet objectionable, and ESPN wants nothing to do with anything that might alienate two large, advertising-consuming groups like those. But what can it mean that the tweet was "completely unacceptable"?

ISIS has developed an officially sponsored, systematic approach to raping little girls. It has attempted to wipe from the face of the earth all evidence of life before its brand of cruel, ignorant, nasty Islam. It is led by psychopath.

Comparisons across time and culture are always fraught, and it serves no purpose to engage in talk about "who is the biggest victim." Schilling's tweet therefore did no serious good. Then again, it was a tweet, for goodness sake.

People who cannot handle the comparison need to get over themselves. Jews do not have a monopoly on suffering, and not every remark about the Holocaust needs to be clearer through B'nai Brith. Schilling did not condemn Islam, he condemned a bunch of murderous thugs who claim Islam as justification. Those who do not like it can say so, but ESPN once again took the path of craven sycophancy.

Shame

2015-08-18T08:13:00.001-04:00

Why Education in History is So Important

2015-08-05T11:20:00.002-04:00

What students learn matters.

For some people, they ought to learn certain ideas: that the United States is "exceptional," that its leaders are generally motivated by a desire to liberate the world, that its economic system of free enterprise promotes innovation and freedom, and the like. These people, many of whom protested a revision of the College Board Advanced Placement Exam in US History, understand that students' experiences in school help frame their view of the world, and they want kids to share their particular view.

To an extent, that's not only right, it's unavoidable. I want my students to believe that dictatorship causes suffering (most of the time), that freedom of expression is as productive as it is morally preferable (most of the time), that the rule of law is essential to political effectiveness.

The reaction to the AP curriculum therefore was not totally unreasonable, but it was badly skewed. There is nothing wrong, for example, with promoting the idea that Americans in the south were proud of slavery. They were. They defended the institution with the very last of their blood and treasure, and there was very limited dissent from this view of things. These facts are unfortunate and maybe even embarrassing, but they are true, and people need to understand them if they are to know US history. (They also probably need to know those facts to understand the defense of the Confederate flag and the Black Lives Matter movement.)

That the College Board could revise the test in the face of political pressure reveals the bureaucratic nature of that organization, but it also highlights the urgency of teaching kids to think for themselves, and to ask questions about the facts.

I would rather that they learn to ask: was the United States really exceptional? How? Was it exceptional in the way many leaders said it was? Is that good? Has the United States, by and large, promoted freedom in the world? How? Why? Is our economic system truly based on the market? Do we want it to be? Why?

Questions are much better than answers.

Why NFL Discipline is Such a Circus (Not in the Way it Wants)

2015-07-29T13:20:00.000-04:00

The National Football League makes money by drawing attention to itself. It feeds off the gossip-girl behavior of ESPN and the morning pregame shows, and only benefits as long as there is something to talk about, even if it is salacious.

Some news items, however, are less good for the league. Junior Seau's death, probably resulting from repeated blows to the head suffered as a literal poster boy for hard hits, is one such item, and the league and its minions would prefer it not get much attention.

Also, the brutal behavior of many of its players, including Ray Rice and Greg Hardy, reflect the inherent, embarrassing violence and entitlement surrounding these very rich, poorly educated young men.

Roger Goodell is the primary problem, though. Because he runs a three-ring circus, his predilections and training lean toward the public relations gesture, the short-term image, and the political expedient. As a result of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and the league charter, however, he is also the sole dispenser of discipline on the league level, and that is a problem.

Goodell's punishment of Tom Brady is downright ridiculous. It may well be within his power, but it has more to do with his desire to show his independence from Patriots owner Robert Kraft than it does with any principles of law or fairness. It's just another embarrassment for him in a long line of recent debacles.

Goodell, like many Americans, including the current governor of Wisconsin, think that justice can be determined through popularity and politics. It cannot. Politics is a a useful thing; it allows for the peaceful distribution of power and treasure. Judges, however, should always be isolated from its operations, however, because what is just often is unpopular. Frankly, I could not care less what happens to Tom Brady of any other NFL player. The actions of the league demonstrate, however, what happens when crime and punishment are confused with politics.

The Obergefell Decision is Incorrect

2015-07-21T14:14:00.001-04:00

I think the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which declared that state prohibition of gay marriage is unconstitutional, is incorrect. I can't find a right to marry in the Constitution.

That's not to say that I think gay couples should not be married. Every state in the union, and the federal government as well, should endorse and protect same-sex marriages. There is not earthly reason to prohibit it; the arguments made by opponents are silly and often contradictory. As I noted in the space earlier, Justice Scalia's dissent in the case was especially embarrassing. No one, for example, has a First Amendment right to refuse to interact with gay people in the public sphere. That's nonsense.

Also, I think the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas is absolutely correct. Justice Kennedy's opinion is that case made precisely the right point when it said that

liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct.... The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government.

To outlaw homosexual conduct is as much an invasion into basic liberty as it would be to outlaw heterosexual conduct as a whole. This kind of government intrusion is exactly the kind of this the 9th Amendment was written to prevent.

Marriage, on the other hand, is not private. It is an explicitly public act, recognized (or not) by religious, social, or political communities. It's not conducted in private, and has no serious bearing on other protected behavior. One can be gay, straight or otherwise whether one is married or not. Although Justice Roberts dissent was unnecessarily uncivil, I think he was right. He said, in part,

Today the Court takes the extraordinary step of ordering every State to license and recognize same-sex marriage. Many people will rejoice at this decision, and I begrudge none their celebration. But for those who believe in a government of laws, not of men, the majority’s approach is deeply disheartening…

The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court’s precedent. The majority expressly disclaims judicial “caution” and omits even a pretense of humility, openly relying on its desire to remake society according to its own “new insight” into the “nature of injustice…

That is, the right to gay marriage is a legal one, to be protected by political process, not a constitutional one. I think Justice Kennedy and the four justices who signed his opinion went a step too far.

Why, Exactly, Should We Care What Bibi Netanyahu Thinks?

2015-07-15T10:04:00.000-04:00

Bibi Netyanyahu does not like President Obama's deal with Iran. We should not be surprised, since he has opposed any negotiations with Iran all along. Fair enough.

So what?

Israel has been, in some cases, an ally of the United States in a region of the world in which the US needs as many allies as it can get. It is a democracy, it is not Islamist, and it has extensive cultural ties to the US, especially in the form of millions of Jews who play an important role in American politics. For these reasons, President Obama ought to pay attention to what Israeli leaders say.

On the other hand, Netanyahu himself has not done a lot to promote American interests in the Middle East. His heavy-handed treatment of Palestinians, both in and out of Israel, continues to provide motivation and opportunity for terrorist recruitment. He has done little, if anything, to help settle the conflicts created by the Arab Spring, in part because he does not like the idea of strong Muslim democracies -- or democracies at all, come to think of it. He has deliberately inserted himself into American politics in violation of all diplomatic protocols, especially between allies.

And, again, the United States needs as many allies in the region as possible. Iran is no friend of ISIS, and Saudi Arabia has been reluctant to help out on that front, at times. Israel is not exactly overextending itself in stopping the spread of a menace far more dangerous to it than to the US, but neither has it been appreciative of US efforts there.

In sum, Bibi can say what he wants, but I don't know why anyone should listen to him.

"Southern pride" is just as bad as Holocaust denial

2015-07-13T09:13:00.000-04:00

People who argue that the Confederate flag stands for their "heritage," rather than any racial agenda are either hopelessly ignorant or in deep denial (or they are outright liars.) The Civil War was fought over slavery, pure and simple. If you want to say people were defending a way of life (dependent on slavery) or states' rights (to allow slavery) or heritage (of brutality and violence perpetrated on blacks by whites), that's fine, so long as you acknowledge the root of it all. Marching in support of the flag, then, is marching in support of an especially virulent form of racism. Of course, anyone has the right to support such things, but to march and also to deny the cause is a combination of stupidity and cowardice.

from Style Weekly

Effective Students and Standardized Testing

2015-07-08T11:15:00.001-04:00

In an earlier post, I noted the obvious: that the ultimate goal in all teaching (and therefore in all educational policy) is to produce effective students -- people who can do the things we want them to be able to do. The problem for teachers and policy makers, though, lies in identifying these abilities and then assessing whether students have them. Neither step is especially easy, but the Common Core Standards attempt to achieve both.

According to the developers of these standards, "the Common Core State Standards establish clear, consistent guidelines for what every student should know and be able to do in math and English language arts from kindergarten through 12th grade." In theory, at least, the program "focuses on developing critical-thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills." In other words, the developers have determined that they prefer to cultivate certain skills rather than emphasizing the retention of certain prescribed content. They have identified the abilities they believe kids should have.

In the abstract, I endorse these choices. In my own work, I spend much more time thinking about how to teach kids to do things than about how to get them to remember things. And, really who can object to the idea of improving "critical thinking and problem solving?"

Perhaps the most underestimated or misunderstood truth in education, however, is the extreme difficulty of assessing such things, even if we can nail down what, exactly, the phrases mean. Critical thinking happens only internally, in the brain of the thinker. In order to know whether someone is doing it, then, we have to design ways for her to reveal what is going on her mind. In other words, she needs to communicate with us. As a result, the means of communication we choose are at least as important as the skills we identify. Not only that, but we have to help the student communicate in our preferred medium so that we can see what she is thinking.

No one thinks that the ultimate goal -- effectiveness -- is the same as taking a paper and pencil test.Very few adults take tests as a part of their daily lives; few employers care how well their employees do it, no one does it for fun, and it is not an element of good parenting. The question, then, is why we want anyone to take a test as a way of assessing her effectiveness.

The answer is that we need some proxy for "effectiveness." We need to find the elements of adult effectiveness (critical thinking, for example) and then measure whether people have those elements. Tests might be able to do that.

Also, maybe not.

Scalia (Once Again) Undermines His Own Institution

2015-07-05T11:45:00.000-04:00

Antonin Scalia would like to think that he is the lone defender of the United States Constitution, and the stalwart member of the Supreme Court. He talks (and talks) about how the "liberal" members of the Court and the promoters of a "homosexual agenda" (a phrase he actually used in an earlier dissent) are usurping the rights of the majority to pronounce homosexuality immoral.

Antonin Scalia is wrong. No one is more responsible for the disintegration of political discourse in this country than he is. His repeated ad hominem attacks on his colleagues, his insistence on emotional, irrational and irresponsible statements in dissenting opinions, he refusal to accept the necessity of stepping out of the limelight in order to maintain at least an appearance of impartiality, help undercut the very rule of law hos purports to defend.

His latest rant, after the Court struck laws that did not accept gay marriages from other states, makes hi look like a fool, and the Supreme Court like a dysfunctional group of political hacks. If he opposes gay marriage on personal religious grounds, that's his right. I think such beliefs are selfish, myopic and out of touch, but OK. If he believes that the Court reached incorrect conclusions, it's his job to dissent. But to ignore the dignity of the Court and launch a campaign against it is unprofessional and harmful.

In my opinion, he is coming quite close to impeachable offenses.

What I Don't Understand About the Rachel Dolezal Case

2015-06-19T11:10:00.001-04:00

Here's what I think I do understand about the strange case of Rachel Dolezal:

Ms. Dolezal's experiences bring her to the conclusion that she is more "black" than "white." Since racial designations in the United States have very little to do with outward appearance (as demonstrated by the fact that she had to be "outed" by her own parents), this is not a nonsensical thing to do.
Many leaders of Civil Rights Movement and other black leaders have been very light skinned. See, for example, the aptly named Walter White, one of the founding members of the NAACP.

Walter White, son of two parents born into slavery, identified as black.

Many African-Americans resent it when white Americans co-opt "black culture" to suit their own needs. As rapper Talib Kweli noted, this kind of behavior may be intended as sympathetic, but usually it's just exploitative or selfish. That Ms. Dolezal reportedly sued Howard University for not showing her work because she was white only reinforces this view.

Here's what I do not think I understand:

Why exactly are people so angry at Ms. Dolezal. The whole point of her story is that race is socially constructed in so many ways. She did make up a story, but the whole concept of race in the United States is a story, fabricated by those in power so they could stay in power. The episode makes me sad, not angry.
Whom did she harm? Kweli says that she probably took positions from women of color when she led the Spokane NAACP, and I suppose that's right. But if there were so many people clamoring for the job, why did she get it?
Why is this about white privilege? That's not to say the sense of entitlement felt by white Americans is not a problem in general, but it seems to me that we have to be careful about how we use the term lest it lose all meaning.

Effective Students = Effective Schools

2015-06-15T12:01:00.001-04:00

If we are to achieve Thomas Jefferson's dream of an informed, independent polity, we need effective schools. Children need to acquire certain skills in order to function politically and economically in our society, and so adults need to hep them acquire such skills. Some people would like to think that home schooling is the best way to attain that goal, but they are being unrealistic at very least, and may even be wrong in their basic conclusions. If "society" needs young people to be educated, then "society" must do the educating, and that means we need schools.

One serious problem with this conclusion, however, is that bad schools are at least as harmful as no school at all. They may be physically dangerous, they may teach kids that life sucks because it is boring or arbitrary, and they may train people in destructive habits. As a result, we cannot just say we want schools; we want schools that teach effectively.
So, what makes an effective school?

The best answer -- and I do not mean this facetiously or cynically -- is that effective students make effective schools. In one sense, this statement is not very helpful. Students with the talent, discipline, and family support necessary to succeed don't need a lot of help from professional teachers. (Let's call this the First Premise of School Evaluation.) These kids will find a way to do well even despite bad teaching. If everybody in the school has to tools when he arrives, then the school looks, and maybe even is, a good school. Admission offices at selective private schools, like the one I work in, understand this fact, and seek applicants who will make the institution and the community stronger.

The less obvious sense of the statement is more important. Our goal is not to have effective schools, but to have effective students. The only reasonable measure of a school, therefore, is whether its graduates can so what they need to do when they leave. (This will be the Second Premise.) If a school's alumni, by and large, live happy and productive lives, then the school has met its ultimate purpose.

Of course, if we go back to the First Premise, though, we can't know whether the alumni's happiness and productivity came as a result of or despite the actions of the school. To evaluate the schools themselves. therefore, we need to find a way to measure the difference between the kid when he arrived and when he left.

This is a difficult thing to achieve, and will be the subject of a number of later posts.

"Reading The Master and the Margarita in Saint Petersburg" by Lucy Papchristou

2015-06-09T21:51:00.000-04:00

An Examination of the Effects of Samizdat on Domestic and

Transnational Relationships in the Former Soviet Bloc

On March 5, 1953, the citizens of the Soviet Union breathed a sigh of relief. Joseph Stalin was dead. In the years following his death up until the demise of the Soviet Union, the intellectual classes engaged in an elaborate system of underground publishing called samizdat, which involved not only the various literary and political factions of the Soviet Union but also intellectual circles in the West. The primary paradigm of the Soviet Union during this time was that the Soviet government had a monopoly on the possession and circulation of ideas and thought. While there certainly existed in great numbers samizdat works of political and social significance, the true threat to the Soviet regime samizdat posed was not in its content, but in its very existence, in what it stood for. Samizdat was a kind of “gateway dissent,” deriving its power from its ability to build foundations—connections between people of different backgrounds living on opposite ends of the globe—upon which future change could occur. Thus the content of the works was not of great importance; rather, it was the effect experienced by each person or social group as the clandestine material was passed from hand to hand that generated the most powerful dissent. By creating this channel of communication to encourage the exchange of thought, samizdat served to subvert the paradigm of the Soviet regime.

One of the most important effects of samizdat stemmed from the quintessential characteristics of the text itself. Samizdat was produced by individually typing-out the works on privately-owned typewriters due to a lack of copy machines, the few of which were operated exclusively by the government. Once finished, the typescripts were then shared among a circle of trustworthy friends and acquaintances.^{^[1]} Often retyped by dozens of typists during their lifetime, the typescripts were riddled with typos and grammatical errors.^{^[2]} Ann Komaromi calls samizdat an “object-sign,” meaning that the physical product has value in and of itself.^{^[3]} A western reviewer describes this idealization from the Russian perspective: “‘the memory of a first encounter with Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago is as much a physical memory—the blurry mimeographed text, the dog-eared paper, the dim glow of the lamp switched on late at night—as it is one of reading the revelatory text itself.’”^{^[4]}

The visceral feelings experienced from the examination of the text had great implications for the ideological connections the work eventually served to form. The name “samizdat” is a parody of the word Gosizdat, the acronym for the state publishing house,^{^[5]} and the underground publishing houses milked the idea that samizdat was a clandestine parody of the powerful state institution to their advantage. Komaromi describes how samizdat was an “opportunity for carnivalesque consumption, something on which to get high.”^{^[6]} There was a primitive sense of thrill derived from circulating, possessing, and reading such illicit material. However, the real danger samizdat posed to the Soviet regime was not due to the content which so enthralled the reader, but what it represented. In an article written for Canadian Slavonic Papers entitled “From Gosizdat to Samizdat and Tamizdat,” D. Pospielovsky calls samizdat a “historically unprecedented phenomena” because it is “a product of a system which rejects and bans independent thought as a matter of principle…” not because it was “considered to be a direct threat to the public order.”^{^[7]} From the perspective of the Kremlin, neither the subject nor the content of work mattered as much as what it represented. Samizdat was an act of restoration—returning power back into the hands of the people. This posed a great threat to the Gosizdat, who had previously had control over the circulation of ideas and was now unable to ease the flow. On this most basic level, samizdat formed a connection between author and reader—not because of any political agenda espoused or cultural phenomenon elucidated, but merely due to its physical presence and tangibility.

The circulation of samizdat caused immediate and widespread government crackdowns, proving that the material did in fact have an effect on the ability of the Soviet government to operate in the way in which it wanted to. The empowerment people experienced as a result of distributing and reading samizdat breached the concrete walls of Soviet control. The first government action occurred in September of 1965 when two writers, Andrei Sinyavksy and Yuli Daniel, were arrested and charged under article 70, which prohibited “agitation or propaganda carried on for the purpose of subverting or weakening the Soviet Regime.”^{^[8]} After a number of resulting protests and three petitions signed by Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn, the XXIII Congress passed 190-1 and 190-3 into the Criminal Code. The articles condemned public protest and the dissemination, production, or printing of “anti-Soviet slander.”^{^[9]} The head of the KGB in 1970, Yuri Andropov, went so far as to say, “the Committee for State Security is taking the requisite measures to terminate the efforts of individuals to use ‘samizdat’ to disseminate slander against the Soviet state…they are under criminal prosecution…”^{^[10]} The “prosecution” of Alexander Solzhenitsyn ended in his expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1974, and Natalya Gorbanevskaya, a human rights activist, was sent to a psychiatric facility in 1969 for two years.^{^[11]} While the preceding examples prove that samizdat was capable of disturbing the foundations of the Soviet government, as the following examples will demonstrate, the subversiveness of samizdat lay not in its content, but in its power to bring otherwise disparate groups of people together and lay the seeds for future dissent.

In an example of a second class of connection formed by samizdat, the actions of two disparate political groups resulted in the revolutionizing of the very structure of the underground publishing houses. Their specific discussions, however, were irrelevant to the outcome of their relationship: the subversion of the Soviet political paradigm. The two groups involved were the socialists and the democrats, the former of which revered Leninism and the old Soviet ways and the latter of which turned their heads wistfully towards Western liberal democracy.^{^[12]} When Brezhnev visited Washington in June of 1973, socialists and democrats were thrown into widespread debate over the possible source of reforms in the Soviet Union, for which both sides lay in hopeful expectation as a result of the détente.^{^[13]} Eventually, Medvedev was worn down and conceded that pressure from the West and from the lower Russian classes could in fact generate change. This democrat “victory,” which crowned Sakharov as the “conscience of the Soviet dissent movement,”^{^[14]} had profound implications for the future of samizdat.

While Sakharov’s deification may appear to be the outcome of the debate, the more profound result actually involved the democratization of the samizdat system, a process which served to undermine the paradigm of the Soviet Union. After the democrats obtained control over samizdat and gained credibility in the eyes of the other dissident factions, some party members expressed a desire to reorganize and rejuvenate the democratic movement. Plans were made to unite democrats using kolizdat—collective samizdat produced using a “‘home-made printing apparatus’”^{^[15]}—so that information and ideas could flow more efficiently. However, another group of democrats, among them P. A. Abovin-Egides and P. Podrabinek, believed that it was in the best interests of the democrats to reach over to other dissident groups, such as the socialists and the Slavophiles.^{^[16]} A third internal faction believed that democrats should work towards going “‘back to the people’” by making an effort to write a “‘common language’” with “‘men on the street.’”^{^[17]} All three of these ideas were extremely important for the future of samizdat. The first two proposals were all about facilitating connections, both within the faction and among other dissident groups. Stronger connections meant a more reliable flow of information and therefore a better-armored militia of dissent to wage peaceful war on the Soviet government. The third proposal, in which the democrats strove to relate to the common man, was in fact borrowed from their own political ideologies. It was only when these ideas were implemented, however, that the democrats began to challenge the authority of the Soviet government.

The concept of the role of the individual in society, closely tied to the philosophical concept of democracy, was another important aspect of samizdat that aided dissidents in their quest to subvert the Soviet system. The Russian dissident Andrei Amalrik believes that in contrast to most dissident movements, samizdat was unique in that it did not require the individual to “sacrifice [his or her] ‘I’ for the sake of the general public.”^{^[18]} The “I” was in fact elevated to previously unforeseen status in the dissident movement. However, instead of living just for oneself—for the sake of the “I”—the individual became part of a larger collection of “I”s, living “with all and for all.”^{^[19]} Everything about samizdat, from its production to consumption, therefore became an act of searching for and expressing the self within a network of similarly-seeking souls. This confluence of otherwise isolated people was essentially the creation of a make-shift democracy. Democracy—from the Greek demos meaning people—is fundamentally concerned with establishing a chain of communication between the government and its citizens. The government knows what its citizens think, and the citizens are able to criticize the government. In Soviet Russia, the democrats were essentially building a miniature model of a democracy within the confines of an extremely rigid communist system. Not only did this democracy aid the flow of ideas, but its very existence was poisonous to the Soviet regime, whose survival depended upon universal acceptance of communist ideals. This concept of going back to the people, of involving everyone—not just the intellectual circles—in the dissident movement, directly subverted the contemporary paradigm: the Soviet government has a complete monopoly on the flow of thought.

Although the process by which the samizdat system was democratized was facilitated by the existence of samizdat (all of the socialist-democrat and democrat-democrat discussions were conducted via samizdat), the subversion of the paradigm of the Soviet Union was not a result of the content of the debate. The substance of the debate was not, after all, about ways to bring samizdat back to the people or create a network of “I” spheres. Samizdat itself accomplished that organically; its very existence and facilitation of the connection between the two dissident groups caused that outcome—not anything that was actually verbally communicated. In the next and final example of the effects of samizdat, a similar phenomenon occurred when two countries banded together to, albeit unwittingly, sow the seeds of future revolutions.

The final case of a samizdat relationship most aptly demonstrates the concept of “gateway dissent” because the connection formed between the two parties served to lay the foundation for more potent acts of dissent in the future. This connection is singular in nature because it involves two vastly different groups of people: émigré Poles residing in Sweden and the opposition forces back in Poland. During the period of détente in the 1970s, Poland looked toward neutral Sweden as a possible “channel” between them and the West, a bridge across the mighty Iron Curtain.^{^[20]} In the early 1970s, Poland and Sweden began to take advantage of the two countries’ shared Baltic Sea ports to circulate samizdat material—a method far safer and convenient than transporting the works by land, as was previously done.^{^[21]} In 1976, however, the articles being smuggled changed. After a series of antigovernment protests in Poland that spurred the founding of a number of human rights and social change organizations, an increasing number of underground publishing houses began to crop up in Poland, notably Niezależna Oficyna Wydawnicza (Independent Printing House, NOWa).^{^[22]} Almost all of these new publishing houses, including NOWa, received their supplies (mimeograph machines, typewriter ribbons, pressure rollers, etc.) from Sweden.^{^[23]} In addition, their relationship with Sweden allowed the dissidents to quickly develop strong relationships to a larger émigré complex in important Western cities, most notably Paris, London, and New York.^{^[24]} (Kultura, perhaps the most influential of all Polish samizdat journals, was published by a Pole living in Paris.^{^[25]}) For the first time since the birth of the Soviet Union—or at least since the end of Khrushchev’s Thaw—the Iron Curtain had been successfully breached. And samizdat itself was the vehicle which carried these relationships over the Curtain.

But what is the significance of this growing alliance between Poles and Swedes? The important question to ask here is how this relationship was perceived back at the Kremlin. The answer requires a leap forward to 31 August, 1980, when the Polish Solidarity movement (Solidarność)—began at the Gdańsk Shipyard,^{^[26]} the first non-communist labor union in the Soviet Union.^{^[27]} Samizdat, as it turned out, played a pivotal role in the development of this movement. Pamphlets were often handed out at the shipyard and activists frequently published organizational announcements to inform the public about what was going on.^{^[28]} The development of Solidarność was a crucial step towards the destruction of the Iron Curtain and the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. In June 1989, members of Solidarność were elected to seats in Parliament, electing in August of that year Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first noncommunist premier since the 1940s.^{^[29]}

But what does this have to do with Sweden? The answer is that without the relationship Polish dissidents formed with Sweden (which led to, of course, the founding of numerous samizdat publishers, many of which aided in the circulation of samizdat during the Solidarność years), Solidarność would not have been nearly as organized, efficient, or efficacious as it was. The samizdat produced in the early 1970s with the help of Sweden can therefore be classified as “gateway dissent,” for it lay the foundations for future acts of far more extensive and profound dissent. However, the samizdat of the early 1970s did not cause the events of 1980 in its content, but rather in its existence; the relationships it formed during that time led directly to Poland’s ability to start a large-scale revolution. In this way, Swedish-Polish samizdat did indeed subvert the existing political paradigm of the Soviet Union—although it did take nearly a decade to lay out the groundwork. Solidarność proved that the people did have a voice of their own separate from the dictations of the Kremlin—and they proved this by their usage of samizdat.

The existence of samizdat in the Soviet Union was one of the most remarkable acts of dissent in the history of oppressed populations. It had a strong presence in many countries in the Soviet bloc and involved thousands of people from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds who would have otherwise remained socially isolated. However, despite the positive outcomes samizdat produced, what was written down on the page was not of great importance in the grander scheme of events. The discussions between the socialists and the democrats did not reach the ears of the Kremlin; what did was due more to what samizdat stood for than what it was actually trying to express. The connection formed between the Sweden and Poland in the 1970’s—not the content of the samizdat which they produced together—helped to set to the stage a few years later when the Polish Solidarity movement was born. In short, presence was of more significance than substance. The effects of samizdat in the twentieth century pose interesting questions in the twenty-first. The path of Russian dissent is yet unknown. Who will step up to the plate and challenge Putin’s totalitarian monstrosity? Will it be Pussy Riot? Alexei Navalny? In the years ahead, who or what will replace samizdat?

^{^[1]} Ann Komaromi, “The Material Existence of Soviet Samizdat,” Slavic Review 63 (Autumn, 2004): 599.

^{^[2]} John D.H. Downing, Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements (London: Sage, 2001), 356.

^{^[3]} Komaromi, “Material Existence,” 609.

^{^[4]} Ibid, 603.

^{^[5]} Gordon Johnston, “What Is the History of Samizdat?” Social History 24 (May, 1999): 122.

^{^[6]} Komaromi, “Material Existence,” 605.

^{^[7]} Dimitry Pospielovsky, “From Gosizdat to Samizdat and Tamizdat,” Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne des Slavistes 20 (March 1978): 46.

^{^[8]} Tania E. Lozansky, “The Role of Dissent in the Soviet Union Since 1953,” The Concord Review 2 (1989): 7.

^{^[9]} Ibid.

^{^[10]} “Creating an Underground Press: Samizdat in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc,” Tavaana, accessed 7 April, 2014, https://tavaana.org/en/content/creating-underground-press-samizdat-soviet-union-and-eastern-bloc.

^{^[11]} Ibid.

^{^[12]} Hyung-min Joo, “Voices of Freedom: Samizdat,” Europe-Asia Studies 56 (June, 2004): 579

^{^[13]} Ibid, 580.

^{^[14]} Ibid.

^{^[15]} Ibid, 581.

^{^[16]} Ibid.

^{^[17]} Ibid.

^{^[18]} Ann Komaromi, “Samizdat and Soviet Dissident Publics,” Slavic Review 71 (Spring, 2012): 76.

^{^[19]} Andrei Amalrik, Notes of a Revolutionary, trans. Guy Daniels (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), 26.

^{^[20]} Lars Fredrik Stöcker, “The Baltic Connection: Transnational Samizdat Networks between Émigrés in Sweden and the Democratic Opposition in Poland,” in Samizdat, Tamizdat & Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism, ed. Friederike Kind-Kovács et al. (Oxford: Berghahn, 2013), 54.

^{^[21]} Ibid, 57.

^{^[22]} Ibid.

^{^[23]} Ibid, 59.

^{^[24]} Ibid.

^{^[25]} Marek Suszko, “‘Kultura’ and European Unification,” The Polish Review 45 (2000): 183.

^{^[26]} Stephen W. Mays, “A Synthetic Analysis of the Polish Solidarity Movement” (Graduate thesis, Marshall University, 2011), 33.

^{^[27]} “Solidarity,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 9 April, 2014, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/553374/Solidarity.

^{^[28]} Mays, “A Synthetic Analysis of the Polish Solidarity Movement,” 137.

^{^[29]} “Solidarity.”

Why Grade Inflation is Bad Teaching

2015-06-08T11:40:00.000-04:00

To teach is to help someone do something he could not do before. By definition, then, the student comes in unable to perform well at the tasks being taught. In order to help him improve, the teacher needs to give him frequent, accurate feedback on where he stands relative to the goal.

That's why grade inflation is such terrible teaching. If I, as a teacher, tell my student that she is doing very well at a task when she is not, in fact, doing very well at the task I may make her feel better in the short term, I may ingratiate myself to her, and I may reduce conflict between her (and her family) and me, but I have failed in my essential function as a professional.

Once again, college admission offices can help secondary school teachers in this regard by choosing mot to reward students with GPA's of 120 on a 100-point scale over those with lower averages. They can make clear that rigor is more important than scores.

No matter what colleges do, though -- and colleges will never act with the interests of high school student at the top of their priorities -- secondary teachers need to buck up and hold their students to the highest standards possible.

I went into teaching, in part, with this objective in mind. I went to a public high school in a fairly wealthy Connecticut town. My graduating class was a bit larger than Millbrook School as a whole – so, we’re talking a middle sized public school.

All the classes there were “tracked;” Level One was considered honors, Level Two was college bound, Level Three was remedial. For two years, I skated. I did as little work as possible, considered my teachers to be foolish or incompetent or both (and in retrospect I think I was right a lot of the time) and thought much more about how I fit in than what I should be doing myself. When I was a junior, though, I started to take myself a little more seriously, and invested more of my energy in school work. I did well, especially in history and English, and most of my classmates were pretty serious students.

In fact, most of the people who graduated in the top 20 in our class went to the most competitive colleges, many of them Ivies. I remember my US History class, in particular, being very demanding and very engaging. The kids were more talented than I was, and I had to work hard to keep up.

But in my senior year, in addition to the full-year European history class, I requested to take other history courses – what were called electives. These were all Level Two courses, and Level One students usually did not go into them, but I asked to do it, and got in to two or three. When I arrived, I was shocked. These courses were holding bins, waiting rooms for kids ready to go home. I could do next to no work and get the highest possible grades. Kids literally could sit around throwing spit balls. The homework consisted of copying definitions into a notebook and turning the notebook in. Tests were even easier than that, and there was no writing at all.

I went into teaching because I never wanted that to happen to anyone if I could help it. It made me angry, and still does. People should never be ignored or condescended to, and the failure to challenge a student is both neglectful and condescending. My mistakes as a teacher, then, tend to go the other way, and that’s why.

"We're Here, We're Queer, Now What?"

2015-06-01T18:47:00.000-04:00

The following essay was submitted by Bailey Summers, who graduated from Millbrook School in May and will be attending Texas Christian University.

Gay pride was once instrumental in raising awareness for the social issues of homosexuality. However, now that the need for gay civil rights has been established, the gay pride movement has become detrimental to the gay rights movement. Actions of the gay pride movement, namely gay pride parades, often reinforce stereotypes, only represent a fraction of the LGBT community, and are outdated, serving little to no productive function. Gay pride parades used to be part of an old gay-rights tradition when gay pride was necessary. Gay pride was the gateway to gay rights, but now is obsolete. Gay pride has become more of a spectacle than a fight for basic human rights. The gay civil rights movement needed the gay pride movement in order to gather momentum, but the goals and agendas of each subgroup have diverged to a point where the gay pride movement is now detrimental to the gay rights movement.

The gay pride movement was essential as it identified an issue that was relatively overlooked and needed attention. One of the first steps towards gaining leeway in the fight for gay rights was to distinguish the gay community; gay pride was vital in doing so. Affectionately dubbed “the Mayor of Castro Street,”[i] Harvey Milk was an iconic politician from the heart of San Francisco’s gay community. Having been elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in 1977, he became “one of the first openly gay officials in the United States.”[ii] Milk jump started the gay civil rights movement and was a political powerhouse for the gay community. Milk’s early campaigns relied heavily on gay pride, the idea that homosexuals should not keep their sexuality secret and should be proud of it instead. Milk encouraged gays and lesbians to come out of their closets, thus increasing their visibility.[iii] John D’Emilio, a gay historian, notes, “this cathartic act of coming out publicly—to one’s family and friends, at work and on the streets—“quintessentially expressed the fusion of the personal and political that the radicalism of the late 1960s exalted.”[iv] Prior to this time, “the gays were attacked helplessly by crazy people… now they were unified and they had a voice, a message, a mission.”[v] Gay pride and the gay rights movement started out as one cohesive community. Since then however, they have split into two different subgroups, each having developed their own set of goals, agendas, and methods.

Despite two totally different attitudes, those who practice and exercise gay pride are often perceived to operate with the same objectives in mind as gay civil rights activists. Both groups evolved from the same movement but are no longer as intertwined as they used to be. Once the gay civil rights issue was evident, the campaign no longer needed to gain visibility like it did before. The movement shifted its focus from liberation to activism. Gay power, the organized political influence exerted by homosexuals as a group, especially to ensure rights in employment, housing, and public accommodation, was finally beginning to make some ground. This new type of movement, though still embracing the objectives of the liberation movement, proceeded to advance with a new set of goals in mind. Gay rights activists pursued political reformation and “rather than [trying] to destroy the old… they sought recognition and inclusion in American society.”[vi] The movement aimed to change government policies and hoped to end job discrimination, media invisibility, and church and military discrimination.[vii] The movement amassed greater visibility and new economic opportunities for gay-oriented businesses all the while remaining polite, political, and unobtrusive.

Gay rights activists are just as motivated and active today. The emphasis of the gay and lesbian rights movement is no longer on coming out, as it was in the 1960’s, but on equality, the demand that they no longer be treated as second-class citizens because of their sexual orientation.[viii] By trying to change legislation and pushing for progressive politics, the gay rights movement has developed a political process in which they get things done. For example, now more than “30 states and the District of Columbia allow marriage for same-sex couples.”[ix] They emphasize their similarities and down play their differences. At the end of the day their goals are not only tangible, but also achievable.

The 1980’s saw a cultural shift in the gay movement. Activists of a less radical nature began taking over the march committees in different cities, and they dropped "Gay Liberation" and "Gay Freedom" from the names, replacing them with "Gay Pride."[x] Gay pride or LGBT pride is the positive stance against discrimination and violence toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people to promote their self-affirmation, dignity, and equal rights; And to increase their visibility as a social group, build community, and celebrate sexual diversity and gender variance. In its efforts to proliferate the acceptance and assimilation of homosexuals into society, gay pride uses and embraces pride parades as a tool to celebrate their differences and bring about social change. Gay pride parades, however, play into the idea of freakiness and weirdness. They aim to promote acceptance by parading their differences. Though pride is the predominant outlook that bolsters most LGBT rights movements around the world[xi], it also proves to be detrimental, even damaging to the LGBT cause at times.

Gay pride parades continually trigger debate and spark controversy. Gay pride parades have been applauded for their ability to bring about awareness of discrimination, bigotry and violence. They help the gay community gather and rally together. They increase visibility and raise consciousness of AIDS. Gay pride parades bring support and unity to the gay community, they let society know that the gay community is not a force to be messed with or ignored. For many, “Pride parades are a chance to come together and celebrate the community and how far it's come, to remember and honor those who came before us, to support each other in our continued efforts to achieve equal rights and to celebrate what it means to be LGBT -- both personally and politically.”[xii]

The other side of the argument, however, is that gay pride parades are no longer necessary. Andrew Sullivan is “one of the world's most widely read bloggers, is a former Atlantic senior editor, a political commentator, and the author of five books.”[xiii] In the 1990’s, Sullivan became known for being openly gay, and for championing issues such as gays in the military and same-sex marriage.[xiv] In the summer of 2000, Sullivan founded The Dish, one of the very first political blogs.[xv] The Dish now has a readership of around 1.2 million visitors with an average of around 8 million page views a month from around the world.[xvi] Sullivan has made it clear that he is not particularly fond of Pride events and has reservations regarding the whole Pride movement. In a post titled, “Dismantling Gay Pride”, Sullivan says, “Pride events can be great therapy and empowerment for those just coming to terms with being out, but can end up enforcing some ghastly, single “gay identity” memes I don’t really believe in. My hope has always been that as civil rights are extended and formal equality achieved, we can move past gay and straight to human… The gay pride thing is so … well, gay. It was once a gateway; now it feels more like a holding pen.”[xvii] Gay pride parades once served to push the gay community and the gay rights movement forward. Now, they hold both the community and the movement back.

Similarly, others also argue that gay pride backfires and being overtly flamboyant is harmful to the LGBT reputation. In an online poll, City-Data.com asked its readers whether they thought gay pride parades give a good or bad impression of homosexuals. Out of one hundred-and-thirteen voters, sixteen percent said pride parades gave them very good or mostly good impressions of homosexuals, twenty-six percent said pride parades gave them neither good nor bad impressions of homosexuals, and a staggering fifty-eight percent said pride parades gave them mostly bad or very bad impressions of homosexuals.[xviii] The negative effects of gay pride parades far outweigh the positive effects and in turn cast a destructive shadow on the gay rights movement. Some members of the LGBT community find fault with pride parades, arguing that the parades provide foes of the community “ammunition with which to disparage the movement. They cite the often sex positive and flamboyant displays that are customarily part of the parades as enforcing the stereotype that LGBT people are silly, gender bending, sex-crazed freaks.”[xix] They worry that the LGBT community “will never gain acceptance from the mainstream if they continue to flaunt their "otherness."”[xx]

The Onion, a pseudo new source, pointed this out in a parody, quoting fictional people on the streets. Allison Weber, a 43 year-old marketing consultant, had her perceptions and assumptions about gays challenged by the parade. She said, “My understanding was that gay people are just like everybody else–decent, hard-working people who care about their communities and have loving, committed relationships," Weber said. "But, after this terrifying spectacle, I don't want them teaching my kids or living in my neighborhood."[xxi] Although this was written with the intent to make readers laugh, it also makes them think. As comedic and light-hearted as this article is, the statements and claims made are ironically correct. This comedic take on pride events rings true, pride events can be and in fact are harmful to the gay rights movement.

Pride parades, regardless of their intentions, often times reinforce stereotypes. Gay pride parades are avant-garde, and outlandish displays of pride in one’s homosexuality held in reverence to the Stonewall Riots, a period that had a lasting impact on the country’s LGBT history. Parade goer’s range from old men in thongs, to polished men with tight butts rocking S&M inspired outfits. The parades are seen as overt displays of sexuality, and it’s participants as sexual deviants. Not only do they widen the gap of separation between the gay community and the straight community, but they also create more inequality amongst Americans. Pride parades are frequently misinterpreted; not all gay men adorn themselves with glitter, boas and tassels to parade their city’s streets just as not all lesbians cover their nipples with electric tape to stress the importance of legalizing same-sex marriage. But that is largely what the general public sees at these events and is what they base their opinions off of. They provide evidence for and greatly support the notion that all gay men are “overly eccentric individuals who prance around acting fabulous,” as described by one Reddit user.[xxii] These large groups of inappropriately dressed men frolicking about are ammunition for homophobic heterosexuals everywhere. Additionally, for those who are hesitant in supporting the gay community, attending a gay pride parade would only prove everything people falsely believe about the gay community to be true. Gay pride parades promote ignorance and are harmful to the gay rights movement by encouraging and reinforcing stereotypical behavior.

Also, gay pride parades only represent a small fraction of the gay community. Pride parades become a hindrance to the gay rights movement the moment people begin to assume all gays to be the same. For every bikini-clad body that just wants to obnoxiously assert its gayness, there is a gay man in a suit wanting to be paid the same amount as his heterosexual co-worker, a lesbian woman wearing gym clothes wanting to be recognized as part of American society, and a gay teen in jeans struggling to come to terms with being out. There are many members of the gay community not being accurately represented by the gay pride parades. The parades make it more difficult for gays who do not participate to be fully accepted. Not only are gay pride parades misleading, but also are the cause of disagreement within the gay community; ever since the pride parades became mainstream, family-friendly businesses, the gay community has had difficulty agreeing on what sort of imagery the parades should present.[xxiii] A blogger on www.abovetopsecret.com wrote, “If you really want to get a message of equality and acceptance implemented, don't make those who disagree with you nauseous with your indecent exposure. It's like expecting Snookie to be a legitimate candidate for women's rights. If you act like a sexual deviant, people will treat you as a sexual deviant. Don't paint that picture for all of the gay community.”[xxiv] He has a point. Gay pride parades send the wrong message and only represent a small fraction of the gay community.

Finally, the parades are outdated and lack any productive purpose. They are, nonetheless, parades, and not marches. Many parades still have at least some of the original political or activist character, especially in less accepting settings. The variation is largely dependent on the political, economic and religious settings of the area.[xxv] Parades have “evolved from radical marches into festive parades with elaborate floats and notable participants including politicians and well-known entertainers,”[xxvi] serving a completely different purpose than before. Originating from the Stonewall riots in New York, the parades used to gather support for the gay community. To an extent, the parades are still a way in which the gay community gathers support, but they are no longer what they used to be; Pride parades are now seen as a spectacle and a freak show rather than a fight for civil rights. An excerpt from A Straight Person’s Guide to Gay Pride on gawker.com reads, “The first Gay Pride parade was really a march through the streets of New York to protest the unfair treatment of gay men by police at the Stonewall Inn in 1969. We now mark the infamous Stonewall Riots every June with a parade through town. It is no longer very political. It's mostly about corporations telling us that they're "down with the gays" and an excuse for gay people to party. Don't judge us.”[xxvii] Gay pride parades have come so far from what they once were; other than an excuse to celebrate, gay pride parades no longer serve any productive functions.

There is much for the LGBT community to celebrate. In 2013 alone, LGBT relationships were made legal, the president became the first president in history to support gay marriage, and the Defense of Marriage act began to look like the U.S. Supreme court could likely overturn it.[xxviii] Pride parades have been crucial in bringing about LGBT rights all over the world. But their initial purpose as a call for equality for all LGBT people has been abandoned. Gay pride was once a means to an end but now it is distracting and detrimental. It no longer enriches the gay rights movement rather it delegitimizes and weakens the movement’s arguments. It plays to the stereotypes of the gay community, its not all-inclusive, and it no longer adheres to its fundamental purpose.

[i] "Harvey Milk," The Biography.com website, http://www.biography.com/people/harvey-milk-9408170 (accessed Apr 08 2015).

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] McCarthy, Patrick. "What Did Harvey Milk Do for Us?" Freedom Requires Wings. May 23, 2012. Accessed April 08, 2015. http://www.freedomrequireswings.com/2012/05/what-did-harvey-milk-do-for-us.html.

[iv] Wolf, Sherry. "Stonewall: The Birth of Gay Power." Stonewall: The Birth of Gay Power. Accessed April 24, 2015. http://isreview.org/issue/63/stonewall-birth-gay-power.

[v] McCarthy, Patrick.

[vi] "History of Gay Rights Movement in U.S." History of Gay Rights Movement in U.S. Accessed April 08, 2015. http://www.uky.edu/~lbarr2/gws250spring11_files/Page1186.htm.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Newton, David E. "Problems, Controversies, and Solutions." In Gay and Lesbian Rights: A Reference Handbook, 35. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2009.

[ix] "Map: Same-sex Marriage in the United States." CNN. April 3, 2015. Accessed April 24, 2015. http://www.cnn.com/interactive/us/map-same-sex-marriage/.

[x] "Pride Parade." - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed February 12, 2015. http://www.c1000veld.nl/web/browse.php?u=Oi8vZW4ubS53aWtpcGVkaWEub3JnL3dpa2kv

[xi] "Gay Pride." Wikipedia. Accessed February 12, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_pride.

[xii] Michelson, Noah. "Pride Parades: Are They Good Or Bad For The LGBT Community? Vote Now! (POLL)." The Huffington Post. Accessed April 24, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/pride-parades-good-or-bad-for-lgbt-community_n_1560371.html.

[xiii] "Andrew Sullivan." The Atlantic. Accessed April 24, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/author/andrew-sullivan/.

[xiv] Ibid.

[xv] Sullivan, Andrew. "About Us." The Dish (blog), February 04, 2013. Accessed April 24, 2015. http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/about/.

[xvi] Ibid.

[xvii] Sullivan, Andrew. "Dismantling Gay Pride." The Dish (blog), June 08, 2011. Accessed April 24, 2015. http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2011/06/08/dismantling-gay-pride/.

[xviii] "Gay Pride Parades: Do They Give You a Good or Bad Impression of Gays?" City-Data Forum. Accessed April 24, 2015. http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/1016460-gay-pride-parades-do-they-give.html.

[xix] Michelson, Noah.

[xx] Harper, Robyn. "Pride and the Other 364 Days of the Year." The Huffington Post. September 13, 2012. Accessed April 22, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robyn-harper/pride-and-the-other-364-days-of-the-year_b_1877767.html.

[xxi] "Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years." The Onion. April 25, 2001. Accessed April 24, 2015. http://www.theonion.com/articles/gaypride-parade-sets-mainstream-acceptance-of-gays,351/.

[xxii] "I Think the Pride Parade Enforces Stereotypes and Is a Hindrance on the Gay Rights Movement. CMV • /r/changemyview." Reddit. Accessed April 24, 2015. http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1x9yig/i_think_the_pride_parade_enforces_stereotypes_and/.

[xxiii] Wong, Curtis M. "Gay Pride Parades Spark Debate As They Become More Corporate, Mainstream." The Huffington Post. September 16, 2013. Accessed April 09, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/16/gay-pride-parade-debate-_n_3936596.html.

[xxiv] "Gay Pride Parades Make Gays Look Bad. , Page 1." AboveTopSecret.com. June 27, 2011. Accessed April 09, 2015. http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread721843/pg1.

[xxv] "Pride Parade." - Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed February 12, 2015. http://www.c1000veld.nl/web/browse.php?u=Oi8vZW4ubS53aWtpcGVkaWEub3JnL3dpa2kv

[xxvi] Wythe, Bianca. "American Experience: TV's Most-watched History Series." PBS. June 9, 2011. Accessed April 09, 2015. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/blog/2011/06/09/pride-parade/.

[xxvii] Moylan, Brian. "A Straight Person's Guide to Gay Pride." Gawker. June 25, 2010. Accessed April 09, 2015. http://gawker.com/5573038/a-straight-persons-guide-to-gay-pride.

[xxviii] Obernauer, Charlene. "What's the Point of Pride Marches?" The Huffington Post. June 19, 2013. Accessed April 09, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charlene-obernauer/whats-the-point-of-pride-marches_b_3462807.html.

Should We Abolish Public Schools?

2015-05-28T10:48:00.001-04:00

Calls to rely on private schooling fail to recognize the fundamental purpose of offering free, government-funded education.

Ron Paul

As concerns about the quality of the American system of public education have grown, some have advocated abolishing it completely. The arguments for this proposal come from a number of angles, but they are all seriously misguided.

One approach is articulated by Libertarian Ron Paul. who sees the government involvement in education as the worst kind of meddling in the private lives of citizens. Only in schools, he seems to think, are kids exposed to drugs and pressures to conform. Schools, as they exist now, he thinks, only stunt our children's ability to think for themselves and forge an identity of their own.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it idealizes the alternatives. Does Paul imagine that all 1.1 million students in New York City public schools can be educated by their parents or the friends of their parents? And if they are, won't they be exposed to an even narrower point of view than in public schools? Does he figure that conformity comes only from the public sector?

Another is the "pure capitalist" or free market approach. By funding public schools, this line goes, we remove them from the pressures of the market, which would force them to meet the needs (or at least the desires) of parents. For-profit ventures -- or at least private ones -- would allow people to make freer choices, in the same way that markets allow more choice than centralized economies.

To an extent, this idea has some merit. It is the foundation of the independent school world's argument that state regulators should leave them alone. For example, the New York State Association of Independent Schools, to which my employer belongs, accredits its member institutions based on standards derived from the goals of the schools' own missions. In other words, the school is expected to announce what it intends, sell that product to families willing to pay between $25,000 and $50,000 a year, and then show how it delivers the product it sells. It mostly relies on the market to decide whether the product itself is worthy.

But the families in independent schools have leverage most people do not have. The very fact that they can pay such outrageously high tuition indicates the degree of social and economic leverage they already have. Not all families have that kind of negotiating power, and if they did they would not have the knowledge or experience necessary to apply it.

Not only that, but schooling provides a social good to people other than those directly involved in its purchase. The childless people in a school district, and those whose children have already passed through the schools, and whose children go to independent schools all benefit from a generally well-educated population. Employees who cannot read or reason or less effective; voters who cannot sort through the BS of a candidate's campaign may harm us all. Like roads, sewers, bridges, and other infrastructure, schools represent a societal investment in the functioning of the group. Free markets don't take such good into account.

Jefferson's vision for America included an informed, engaged electorate, and he assumed that such a thing required a certain level of education. He himself was a remarkable autodidact, who read voraciously and did more than dabble in everything from moral philosophy to botany. Jefferson certainly did not imagine that everyone would reach his levels of expertise in most things -- he was not an especially humble man -- but it seems that he did assume that anyone taught to read and count would then use those tools to expand their abilities more broadly. What he wanted, in the end, was a certain level of individual autonomy.

The question is how we can achieve that kind of autonomy for the greatest number of people.

"You Must Be This Young To Die," by Catherine Luchars

2015-05-25T08:50:00.000-04:00

This essay was submitted by Catherine Luchars, just graduated from Millbrook School and headed for Colorado College in the fall.

With the development of medicinal care in the past century, the balance between prolonging life and relieving suffering has become increasingly more controversial for doctors. Instead of death happening naturally or accidently on people’s own terms, it has moved to public hospitals. Physicians now control the outcomes of people’s lives, raising the question of whether the doctor’s authority serves a patient’s best interest. The responsibility of making decisions on how to treat a patient must naturally shift from doctors and governmental authorities to patients and family members. Assuming an individual is competent and of a rational mind, being free from unwanted interference in order to uphold bodily integrity is a fundamental principle engrained into our democratic society. The right of individuals to choose their own medical care and the time, place, and manner of their death is implicit in the basic notion of personal autonomy and self-determination, and ultimately must take precedent over the governmental interest of protecting citizens by safeguarding their health.

This contemporary issue over who should be making medical decisions is being disputed in a current court case in Connecticut. It involves Cassandra C., a 17-year-old girl, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in September. In the face of grueling future medical treatments to combat this disease, Cassandra made the personal decision to forego chemotherapy altogether, despite its 80% chance survival rate, and cope with the fact that without treatment her chance of death is almost certain. This decision, supported by her mother, has entangled the two in a legal battle against the Connecticut State courts. It began after the surgical removal of Cassandra’s lymph node performed by local doctors. Following this, Cassandra and her mother planned on consulting with doctors in another state to seek another opinion, but the local doctors called Department of Children and Families, raising the issue of parental medical neglect. As a result, the Court ordered the removal of Cassandra from her mother’s custody until her mother “provided and cooperated with the medical care under DCF supervision and as recommended by her doctors”.[i] Cassandra and her mother subsequently complied with the court’s orders, but after Cassandra received her first two chemotherapy treatments, she ran away from home to avoid further treatment. When she returned, the court “ordered that she be immediately removed from her home and that she remain in DCF’s care and custody”.[ii] They also authorized the DCF to “make all necessary medical decisions on Cassandra’s behalf.”[iii] She is now in a hospital receiving treatment under this court order.

The court declared that not only Cassandra, a 17-year-old girl, is incompetent to make her own medical decisions, but her mother lacks the responsibility as well, bringing up issues regarding personal and family integrity. Cassandra’s mother has acknowledged the fact that her daughter will die without treatment. Her mother declared that regardless of this outcome, “it’s her constitutional right—she doesn’t want poison and toxins in her body. It’s her choice, and I support her decision.”[iv] Cassandra “put up a fight”[v] against the Connecticut state doctors to avoid chemotherapy, and ultimately had to be strapped down to the hospital bed. She reflects on her experience in a personal essay after being hospitalized in December, “ I was strapped to a bed by my wrists and ankles and sedated. I woke up in the recovery room with a port surgically placed in my chest. I was outraged and felt completely violated.”[vi] Cassandra, currently confined to the hospital with limited communications and visits, specifically by her mother, writes that she feels suffocated by the court’s intervention and that nobody has let her breath. She ends her personal essay with the fundamental constitutional issue, “How long is a person actually supposed to live and who decides that?”

The basic right for a person to choose not be touched or treated without consent, despite a potentially fatal outcome, has been consistently established in prior court decisions and should provide ample protection for Cassandra. Based on Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Dept. of Health, a case involving a woman who was permanently unconscious after a serious car accident, the Supreme Court recognized the right of any person deemed competent to refuse any medical treatment.[vii] The court limited this right by saying that states also have an interest in this matter, whether preserving life, preventing suicide, or upholding the ethical integrity of the medical profession. Therefore, the court decided that a state has the ability to insist on clear and convincing evidence as to the patient’s wishes. This case, along with several others such as Quinlan vs. New Jersey and Bouvia v. Superior ushered the legal acceptance of what is now classified as passively hastening death.[viii] In Quinlan vs. New Jersey (1976), Karen Ann Quinlan stopped breathing and fell into a persistent vegetative state, with full recovery unlikely. Her family fought the courts to remove the respirator, figuring that’s what Karen would have wanted. The New Jersey Supreme Court acknowledged both the right for Quinlan to refuse further treatment and her family’s right to make that decision for her by allowing her respirator to be removed. In Bouvia vs. Superior Court, the court recognized that a 30-year-old woman, who was a victim of cerebral palsy, had the right not be force fed through medical procedures, even if refusal led to her death.[ix] In these cases, the patients, whose prospects for a somewhat meaningful existence were almost certain, were still allowed to end their life by foregoing treatment. Courts hold that an individual’s right to privacy and to be free from unwanted bodily interferences affords an individual the ability to make this decision.

The courts distinguish the countervailing state interests of the preservation of life, the prevention of suicide, the protection of third parties, and upholding the ethical integrity of the medical profession from the ability to limit a patient to forgo medical treatment. However, if a patient is terminally ill, permanently unconscious, or deemed competent by the courts to make rational medical decisions for themselves, these limitations have little effect. Ultimately, the courts view, as stated in Quinlan is that “the state’xs interests weaken and the individual’s right to privacy grows as the degree of bodily invasion increases and the prognosis dims”.[x] They deem that allowing a patient to merely refuse medicine, even when it is life sustaining, is letting the disease or nature take its course, therefore not constituting suicide, which is generally condemned in most state and federal courts.[xi] In addition, they said that the government’s concern over the effect of the medical decision on a third party, such as a child, friend, or other close member, denies the patient of the choice of which risks to take. A person is obligated to evaluate their circumstances and judge what is best whether for themselves or those who might be affected. Ultimately, the right of individuals to make their own medical choice prevails over the interest of a third party.

They also recognize that this strong right does not sacrifice the ethical integrity of the medical profession because finding a cure to any and all disease is not the end goal anymore. Rather than treatment, the dying person is often in need of comfort.[xii] This theme of compassion in doctors is highlighted in the decision of Superintendent of Belchertown State School v. Saikewicz, stating, “if the doctrines of informed consent and right of privacy have as their foundations the right to bodily integrity…and control of one’s own fate, then those rights are superior to the institutional considerations.”[xiii] These exceptions to the limitations on the right to refuse treatment directly apply to Cassandra’s situation. They uphold the basic human principles that not only is an individual obligated to make decisions for themselves, but also the doctor’s are obligated to respect those decisions, as the sole goal of treatment is not recovery for those suffering with severe, incapacitating illnesses. With modern technology affording a patient multiple medicinal routes to take, the patient must make the decision based on what they feel most comfortable with, eliciting the crucial right of privacy and self-determination.

Despite not being explicitly guaranteed as a fundamental right in the constitution, the right to privacy has become accepted in landmark Supreme Court cases in the past. Dating back to 1891 in Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, the court recognized that the right of personal privacy or a “guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy” [xiv] exists in the constitution. Justice Blackmun in Roe v. Wade ruled that “in varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment; in the Fourth and Fifth amendments; in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights; in the Ninth Amendment or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment.”[xv] From here he says that only personal rights that “can be deemed fundamental or implicit in the concept of ordered liberty” [xvi] are included in this guarantee of personal privacy.

Based on this conclusion, Blackmun argues that a statute criminalizing a woman’s right to an abortion is unconstitutional. He points out the detriment that the state would impose upon the pregnant women by denying her choice to terminate her pregnancy. He not only cites physical harms, but the psychological distress that would arise from an unwanted child who is unable to be cared for. This detriment has little distinction from the state refusing Cassandra and her mother’s, or, more generally, other seriously incapacitated patients’, choice as to how they will die. The series of harsh treatments that as Cassandra’s mother says “kills the cancer, but also kills everything else in your body”[xvii] and the loss of autonomy, bodily functions, and the decreasing ability to participate in activities that make life enjoyable should be reason enough for a person to be able to make this private decision.[xviii] In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court acknowledges that matters

Involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the state.[xix]

The state of Connecticut cannot punish Cassandra for having her own beliefs and concept of existence. If enduring the emotionally and physically painful process of chemotherapy does not feel worth it to Cassandra, the state must respect that and let her be.

Connecticut claims that this recognized right does not apply to Cassandra on the sole basis that she is an incompetent patient since she is a minor (17 years old) and lacks the responsibility to make the decision for herself. However, previous courts have attempted to maintain the principles of autonomy by allowing a surrogate to make decisions regarding medical treatments for an incompetent patient. A surrogate, typically a close family member who best knows the patient and is most likely to act for the patient’s welfare, must apply the “substituted judgment standard,”[xx] by reflecting the patient’s probable wishes. In this case, Cassandra’s mom, acting as her surrogate, has decided to uphold Cassandra’s wishes. Despite being her legal guardian and authorized to make decisions for her daughter, Cassandra’s mother’s voice was discredited by Connecticut as well based on the conclusion that she did not have her daughter’s best interest in mind, accusing her of parental medical neglect. Yet, her mother was simply supporting her daughter’s decision. In fact, she even specifically remembers Cassandra remarking several years earlier that if she ever were to get cancer, she wouldn’t want chemotherapy. Her mother respected Cassandra’s long-standing views on this matter, and sought out second opinions on what Cassandra’s other options were besides chemotherapy. These actions cannot rationally be taken as “neglect” and, as Cassandra’s surrogate, it is within her right to make these decisions anyways.

The state rejects the argument that Cassandra should be given the authority to choose whether or not to undergo chemotherapy based on her maturity. However, their evidence to determine her maturity is founded solely on her behavior in response to the state’s actions.[xxi] Following the initial trial court decision that allowed Cassandra to move back home in her mother’s custody if she submitted to the unwanted treatment, Cassandra decided to run away from home for several days and skipped several court-mandated chemotherapy appointments. An article in the Harvard Crimson notes Connecticut’s inconsistency saying, “a state should not have the right to base the legitimacy of its authority over her on the fact that she challenged the court’s legitimacy in the first place.”[xxii] Essentially, Connecticut’s conviction that neither Cassandra nor her mother is rational in their decision to refuse treatment extinguishes the legitimacy of any right personal autonomy in the first place, as the medical decisions are only deemed rational if they consent to the authority of the state’s decision.[xxiii]

Regardless of her maturity level and competency to make a decision, if Cassandra was born only several months earlier, the state would have no interest in this matter at all since she would be 18 and therefore considered old enough to make rational decisions. This fact is impossible to ignore as it highlights the legitimacy of the state’s interest. While protecting a minor from making a fatal decision is valid, they cannot justify the difference that only a few months would make on an individual’s capability to make a decision. Cassandra’s lawyer points out this key point, asking “Can a smart and knowledgeable 17-year-old make the same choice, for better or for worse, than she would be able to make without state interference nine months from now, when she turns 18?”[xxiv] Once a person turns 18, their decision-making skills do not automatically improve.

Many states have made efforts to counteract this fact by adopting a Mature Minors Doctrine, which holds that some minors possess the maturity to make their own medical decisions, even if they are younger than the age of legal adulthood. As of 2013, seventeen states have recognized some form of this doctrine[xxv]. This law generally gives minors the ability to consent to medical treatment against the wishes of their parents, often relating to giving teenagers the right to get an abortion. Connecticut is one of the states that has not implemented any aspect of this legislation and instead continually refuses to acknowledge that there is no rigid, defining age of maturity. Their complete denial of this inconsistency undermines their claims of governmental interest by not truly evaluating a person’s maturity beyond their age. Courts have ruled that minors can refuse treatment before. In 2007, 14-year-old Dennis Lindberg died of leukemia after refusing to undergo life-saving blood transfusions. The state of Washington allowed him to make the decision for himself because he was a Jehovah’s Witness and blood transfusions are banned in his faith[xxvi]. This is no different from Cassandra. While her decision might not be influenced by her religion, it is still based on her own beliefs on human existence.

Admittedly, a 17-year-old girl deciding to succumb to a disease that will most likely end her life is an agonizing thought. Yet, it must be recognized that no matter what, death is one of the most mystifying aspects of human life. Ultimately, it has to be up to the individual to rationalize their concept of it for themselves. Permitting Cassandra to “form and live in accordance with her own conception of a good life, at least within the bounds of justice and consistent with others doing so as well”[xxvii] is a right that the state simply cannot repeal. If Cassandra would rather succumb to her death than endure the “poison”[xxviii] that would be put into her body to counteract her dying and the emotional toll it would take on her, then she should be able to. The state’s interest in her maturity to handle this based on her age is essentially arbitrary and their failure to yield to her wishes as well as her legal guardian’s sacrifices both of their liberty altogether. It reveals that regardless of whether someone is capable of making a rational decision or not, if it is not in accordance with the ideas of the authority, then the authority may disregard it. Connecticut’s actions, despite its good intentions of safeguarding health and protecting a minor, cross personal boundaries that destroy Cassandra’s individual autonomy and lack any compelling justification. This case and along with others cited throughout this paper clearly illustrate that a governmental interference with a noble cause, if left unchecked and pushed too far, can cause more damage than good and ultimately threaten an individual’s inherent right to free will and independence—two core values fundamental to a democratic society.

[i] Josh Kovner, “Teen Fighting Chemo Order” Hartford Courant, January 03, 2015.

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Ibid

[v] Josh Kovner, “Teen’s Mother: It’s her choice” Hartford Courant, January 04, 2015.

[vi] Elizabeth A. Harris, “Connecticut Teenager With Cancer Loses Court Fight to Refuse Chemotherapy,” The New York Times, January 09, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/nyregion/connecticut-teenager-with-cancer-loses-court-fight-to-refuse-chemotherapy.html?_r=0 (accessed April 4, 2015)

[vii] Alan Meisel. "Right to Die, Policy and Law." Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Ed. Stephen G. Post. 3rd ed. Vol. 4. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 2385-2396. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.

[viii] Ibid

[ix] Ibid

[x] Ibid

[xi] Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793 (1997)

[xii] Meisel, “Right to Die, Policy and Law”.

[xiii] Ibid

[xiv] Roe v. Wade 1973

[xv] Ibid

[xvi] Ibid

[xvii] WW I Chattanooga, “Cassandra’s Catch-22” The Economist Newspaper, January 14, 2015,http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/01/medical-consent (accessed April 8)

[xviii] Meisel, “Right to Die, Policy and Law”.

[xix] Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).

[xx] Meisel, “Right to Die, Policy and Law”.

[xxi] Risham Dhillon “Raw Truths, Instinct, and Justice: The Cassandra C. Case” The Harvard Crimson, January 28, 2015, http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/28/cassandra-c-mature-minor/ (accessed April 1, 2015)

[xxii]Ibid

[xxiii] Chattanooga, “Cassandra’s Catch-22”.

[xxiv] Josh Kovner, “Lawyer: Teen’s Prognosis Good” Hartford Courant, January 6, 2015.

[xxv] Ibid

[xxvi] Megan Thielking, “Why a 17-year-old with cancer if being forced to undergo chemo against her will,” VOX, January 8, 2015, http://www.vox.com/2015/1/8/7513423/why-a-17-year-old-with-cancer-is-being-forced-to-undergo-chemo (accessed April 24th, 2015).

[xxvii]Simon Canick, "Constitutional Aspects of Physician-Assisted Suicide After Lee v. Oregon" (1997). Faculty Scholarship. Paper 150. http://open.wmitchell.edu/facsch/150

[xxviii] Kovner, “Teen Mother: It’s her choice”.

Bibliography

Canick, Simon. "Constitutional Aspects of Physician-Assisted Suicide After Lee v.

Oregon" (1997). Faculty Scholarship. Paper 150. http://open.wmitchell.edu/facsch/150

Harris A, Elizabeth. “Connecticut Teenager With Cancer Loses Court FIgh to Refuse

Chemotherapy,” The New York Times, January 09, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/nyregion/connecticut-teenager-with-cancer-loses-court-fight-to-refuse-chemotherapy.html?_r=0 (accessed April 4, 2015)

Kovner, Josh. “Teen Fighting Chemo Order” Hartford Courant, January 03, 2015.

Kovner, Josh. “Teen’s Mother: It’s her choice” Hartford Courant, January 04, 2015.

Kovner, Josh. “Lawyer: Teen’s Prognosis Good” Hartford Courant, January 6, 2015.

Meisel, Alan. "Right to Die, Policy and Law." Encyclopedia of Bioethics. Ed. Stephen G.

Post. 3rd ed. Vol. 4. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. 2385-2396. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

Dhillon,Risham. “Raw Truths, Instinct, and Justice: The Cassandra C. Case” The

Harvard Crimson, January 28, 2015, http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/1/28/cassandra-c-mature-minor/ (accessed April 1, 2015)

Salem Press Encyclopedia. “Euthanasia Debate.”

Euthanasia debate.

(accessed March 28)

Thielking, Megan. “Why a 17-year-old with cancer if being forced to undergo chemo

against her will,” VOX, January 8, 2015, http://www.vox.com/2015/1/8/7513423/why-a-17-year-old-with-cancer-is-being-forced-to-undergo-chemo (accessed April 24th, 2015).

Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793 (1997)

WW I Chattanooga “Cassandra’s Catch-22” The Economist Newspaper, January 14,

2015,

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/01/medical-consent (accessed April 8)

"School Choice" and Public Subsidies

2015-05-22T08:56:00.002-04:00

More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson urged Americans to "educate and inform the whole mass of the people" because "they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." The idea, not unique to him, is that popular governance depends on a literate voting public, conversant in the issues of the day and capable of making reasonable decisions in its own self-interest, whether that interest be collective or individual.

How exactly to get that done, however, has never been obvious. I doubt, for example, that Jefferson, who was a staunch defender of state power, would have supported federally mandated or federally funded schools. He did found the University of Virginia, a public institution, and he also supported the idea of very basic publicly-funded education for everyone. After three years of free schooling, though, Jefferson would have required students' families to pay for the rest.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo proposed earlier this month that the state provide tax breaks to help families fund private education. According to one source, "in New York City, 242,000 students attended nonpublic schools, 19 percent of the student population." Of those, many go to "elite," very expensive schools, like Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn, Dalton in Manhattan, or Horace Mann in the Bronx. For most people, these school are far too expensive to contemplate, and it does not seem that Cuomo's proposal would provide enough money to pay all of the $30,000 tuitions involved.

The question is, then, whether Cuomo's idea would help further the project urged by Jefferson so long ago. His motivation, he said, stemmed from the fact that “there are some areas, frankly, where the public schools are not places where you would want to send your children ... Sending your child to one of these failing public schools is in many ways condemning your child to get a second-class education.” In that case, he figures, the state should support parents' efforts to get their kids out of bad schools and into better ones.

On its face, however, I don't see how this would help. Would more people find private schools available to them as a result of this tax break, or would the same wealthy, well-connected families simply double their benefits by saving the money required to insulate their children from the very masses Jefferson was most concerned about?

The teachers' unions are pretty sure it's the latter: “We respect parents’ decisions to send their children to private or religious schools, but they shouldn’t ask taxpayers to subsidize those personal choices,” Mr. Korn said. “What’s next, tax credits for parents who want to golf at country clubs instead of municipal courses?”

http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2013/07/10/weiner-would-give-private-schools-equal-standing-at-city-doe/#.VV8hSShiF7N

The Best Single Source of Information on Drones

2015-05-03T20:13:00.001-04:00

The American Security Project offers a comprehensive description of US security policy as it relates to drone strikes. The advantage to this site, as I see it, is that it does not take an immediate position on whether drones are good or bad for foreign policy.

"Reasonable Certainty" Kills Two Hostages

2015-04-27T19:09:00.003-04:00

By many standards, the Obama Administration behaved decently and cautiously when it bombed the compound in Pakistan where Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto were being held hostage in January. They conducted weeks of surveillance on the site to ensure that the men they wanted to kill were there, and that they were the only ones there.

Even after the strike, the CIA, of all organizations, were far from callous in their approach to the bombing. When they saw that six, not four bodies were removed from the building they had just wrecked, they investigated. They spent weeks "poring over drone video feeds, satellite data, electronic intercepts of cellphone conversations and informants’ reports" to analyze the evidence from the rubble, and then quizzed people on the ground about who those extra bodies belonged to.

Once they realized they had killed two "Westerners," and that one was an American (bad) and another not (embarrassing), the Obama Administration did not cover up the ugly truth, but faced it. President Obama apologized even before anyone else called him on it.

Haji Mujtaba/Reuters http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/world/asia/cia-qaeda-drone-strikes-warren-weinstein-giovanni-lo-porto-deaths.html

It's not despite this meritorious conduct, but because of it, that the drone program is a problem. Any time one man -- even a conscientious, intelligent, and deeply moral man like President Obama -- takes it upon himself to be prosecutor, judge, and executioner, he is likely to kill innocent people. No standard to which he can hold himself will be a sufficient protection against results as bad as these.

Hazing is Not Coaching

2014-10-13T17:36:00.000-04:00

George Najjar got a place in the New Jersey Football Coaches Hall of Fame last summer. He's won a lot of football games for at least two different public high schools. He is a terrible coach.

Sayreville defensive coordinator George Garcia is a loser, who somehow thought that supplying steroids to children was a good idea.

How can I say that, without ever having met him or seen one of his teams play? Because anyone whose teams are capable of sexually assaulting their members is a terrible coach. Hazing and bullying is not coaching. It's just violence. And if this guy's players thought it was OK to commit such violence against the younger, weaker kids in the program, then Najjar failed miserably at his job.

Najjar is a disgrace, and the fact that even one of his players' parents can stand up for him reflects a sad misunderstanding of what it means to teach or coach. Just as with the Horace Mann sexual abuse scandal, this event was precipitated in part by a bizarre belief among some weak-minded, immoral adults that bullying their kids was a coaching style.

It's not a method or a style, it's a failing. Let's get that straight.

Obama and Holder Get Weird

2014-09-16T12:51:00.000-04:00

We're accustomed now to stories coming from China about government suppression of information. No one is surprised to hear that North Korea has arrested someone for speaking truth about what goes on over there. Totaltarian governments fear information because they hate to be embarrassed. Their legitimacy is so tenuous that any inkling of trouble could cause huge trouble down the line.

In the United States, however, we are supposed to trust that information will flow relatively freely. Sure, we'll hear about national security trumping clarity at times, but the 1st Amendment limits that kind of thing.

That's why the Attorney General's argument that a defamation lawsuit against a wholly private company is so bizarre. There really are only two options here, neither one of which is especially attractive. Either the company in question is in fact a front for a cover operation -- in which case the cover is blown just by the government's position -- or it is not -- in which case the Obama Administration has lost its bearings.

According to the New York Times, Holder's argument is classic double speak:

In this case, however, the Justice Department said that “the concerned federal agency, the particular information at issue and the bases for the assertion of the state-secrets privilege cannot be disclosed” without jeopardizing national security.

Why can't we sue? "Secret." Why is the information secret? "Secret."

That's it.

But that cannot be it. Not here. Not ever.