Eric Thomas Weber's Blog

The Usefulness of Twitter: Formerly Perplexed to Newly Initiated

2012-01-02T08:25:00.000-08:00

Problem: As a tech-savvy fellow, who manages half a dozen Web sites, uses three different computers, a smartphone, and an iPad, I nevertheless had the hardest time making any sense of Twitter. Twitter is something people talk a lot about, but few explain. Even as a Twitter account holder, I rarely used the thing and did not really understand its value.

I am now convinced. Twitter is quite remarkable. A number of my friends have been perplexed about Twitter also, so I am jotting a few words down to explain the usefulness I see in Twitter. I am going to assume the reader's familiarity with Facebook, a service more wide-spread in use than Twitter, but with a different purpose. Twitter is growing and is an impressive tool.

Twitter fills a niche. On first glance, it looks like a place to post Facebook status updates, but that can be viewed by everyone. In fact, you can make your Facebook page more public, but most people don't recommend that. Why? Because Facebook reveals quite a lot about your identity. In an age of identity theft, that's not often a good idea to do. Also, a common feature on Twitter is similarly available on Facebook: following a celebrity, opinion leader, newspaper, etc. But, there are important differences. Plus, one might think that 140 characters is not enough to say much. That's true. But just think about catchy news headlines. they're usually far fewer characters. Plus, you can link to things. So, as in this case, one can post to Twitter with a link to one's blog or to a site that has more information. Spreading the word with a blog, however, will only happen if you already have a lot of blog followers. As I don't at this point, and as Twitter is powerful for spreading messages, it can be the way to drive readers to sites or blogs.

What is remarkable about Twitter is the power it has to spread messages and to allow you to follow discussions about topics. I am a scholar of Philosophy, Public Policy, Leadership, and more, and each of these terms I can "follow" on Twitter. The idea is that whenever a person writes about a topic, he or she places a "#" tag before the word ("hash-tag," I've learned to call it, not a "pound sign"). What immediately follows that symbol is then viewable to whomever follows that term.

So, imagine going to a big conference. You want to keep up with what is going on there. Using a designated #tag for the event can allow you to follow updates about the event while it is going on. It is a bit like the big bulletin board chat spaces that used to only be available on desktop computers. Now you can chat with people on your cell phone. This could be incredibly useful. Also, if you are a scholar/researcher, the #tag is akin to Web readers that send you alerts anytime your political candidate or research subject is mentioned in the newspaper. The difference is that Twitter is a constant, ongoing conversation. I should add that the "@" tag links to users in much the same way. So, if you have something to say about Fareed Zakaria, his 100,000 follower list will see your post.

For anyone interested in research, therefore, which includes journalists, scholars, and many more, this is a very interesting and promising new tool. Given all my friends on Facebook who are scholars, I regularly find interesting links to news articles or journal articles there that are worth reading for my field. Imagine the same thing being an option with a far larger audience than my small list of (hundreds of) friends. A message posted by one person can be retweeted, furthermore, which is akin to "sharing" on Facebook, but unlike Facebook, you can spread the word to people who learn about any particular #tag. So, if there's an article anyone who studies philosophy should read, I can post a link to it on Twitter and add "#philosophy" to make sure that anyone following that tag sees it.

Beyond that, big names often direct their own twitter accounts. I've seen Fareed Zakaria respond to people directly on Twitter, when he might not respond to emails. You can understand why. If someone's comment is short, it is much more likely to be read. Although I've only put a few pieces in newspapers, I've gotten insanely long emails from people that I haven't had time to read. If they'd kept their messages short, I'd have been much more likely to read them in their entirety. And, keep in mind, I'm nobody. In this same context, Zakaria has responded to people just today. The accessibility of people, themes, and more is far more direct.

Now, one could reasonably argue that you can't say much in 140 characters. That's right. It's just like reading headlines when you visit CNN's page (their headlines are shorter than 140 characters, actually). The point is that you can glance through many headlines quickly, skipping over tons of stuff, and look only at those posts that catch your interest. Given that they often link elsewhere, you can then go read more and do so selectively. It's like Facebook in this regard, but with far more possible people to draw from, and with the added power to narrow what you read from them to only those things relevant to your own selected keywords.

Bottom line, why does this matter? A. You can follow opinion leaders, celebs, politicians, organizations you care about, or sports teams more quickly, directly, and immediately; B. You can spread a message like nobody's business if you're aiming to ("@nytimes," for instance, will reach more than 4 million people), such as about a political candidate, a pressing news story, a fundraising effort, or a change of location for the event you've organized; C. Your messages might have something to contribute to a variety of audiences, and if so, you can mention a person or several (@tag), as well as a topic or several (#tag), the audiences of which will see your link and message when you post it.

I should finally add that as a reader who does not care to post much in a public space, a person could nonetheless really be impressed with Twitter. The trick, I think, is to follow those newspapers, politicians, opinion leaders, etc., whom you find really interesting (Andrew Sullivan's DISH is very interesting, for example). Rather than going to their Web sites and browsing, you can have tags keep you up to date on those topics of greatest interest to you, and have those messages sent to you directly via the Twitter conduit. The possibilities for making use of this platform are remarkable.

Lots of people know this platform FAR better than I do. Posting here, I've probably understated many things that could be expanded upon or clarified elsewhere. For now, though, I thought it might be useful to share with others the reasons this new initiate (moi) has come to be highly impressed with a platform that sadly requires the use of the word "tweet" (I know, I know...). That aside, the potential for a new way to filter news (which is sometimes overwhelming) and to contact people is so great that I thought a few words about it might be worthwhile.

By all means, please correct me in the comments below and consider following me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/erictweber.

My piece in the Commercial Appeal (Memphis): "Forward Rebels, or a Big Step Back?" from 10/22/11

2011-10-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

Visit my Web site here: http://www.ericthomasweber.org

Today, my piece came out in the Commercial Appeal, the major Memphis newspaper. You can read the piece on their Web site here for now. Pending permission from the paper to repost the article word for word here, I'll do so. For now, above is the thumbnail for the article.

"Rand's Appeal Curious: Politics of Individualism," my op-ed published today in The Clarion Ledger, pages C1&2, July 24, 2011

2011-07-24T11:45:00.000-07:00

Visit my Web site here: http://ericthomasweber.org

Here's a scan of the article:

http://ericthomasweber.org/ETW-RandsCuriousAppeal.pdf

In case some people would like to read it in Html format (you can read it here without a fast connection for downloading the scan), I post the article here. This is because Gannett newspapers often take articles down after about a week on their Web sites. Here's The Clarion Ledger's Web site. Here's the article:

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Rand's appeal curious

The ideas of writer Ayn Rand strangely attract politicians of all stripes

Since President Barack Obama's election, the works of Ayn Rand have surged in popularity. Among the fans of Rand's work is U.S. Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky. Contrary to popular misconception, Paul was not named after the famous author. He has been vocal, however, in calling attention to her ideas.

Rand is a strange heroine in American politics. She has fans and critics in both parties. Beyond her ardent defense of free markets, she favored free love and sex. She was for birth control and presented idolized lead characters in her books who committed adultery time and again. She was a strong supporter of abortion rights. The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights calls abortion "an absolute right."

She is also a role model for some working women, presenting examples like Dagny Taggart, the brilliant vice president in charge of operations at Taggart Transcontinental and protagonist of Atlas Shrugged.

A compassionate person should have trouble with Rand's elitism, however. People who advocate for families, for religion, for children, or for persons with disabilities should feel a great tension with her ideas. Rand despised psychological weakness, counting religion as one, as well as dependency. Children have no clear place in books like Atlas Shrugged.

How can a medical doctor like Sen. Paul be such a fan? As a doctor, he nobly provided treatment to underserved areas, offering "eye exams and surgery to needy families and individuals," according to his website.

Paul's idol would be unimpressed with such selfless behavior. She believed charity is sometimes acceptable, but is not a good thing. In her view, it usually perpetuates reliance on others. The ideals of Christian charity and goodwill toward fellow citizens, which John Winthrop and later on, President Ronald Reagan espoused, run counter to the approach she thinks is best for society. So her match as a heroine for many GOP leaders is at least surprising.

Where does Rand fit in American politics?

Most would probably call her a libertarian. She certainly was an advocate for free markets. It is odd, however, for Christians and conservatives to idolize her. Simply put, Ayn Rand was strongly opposed to conservatism, explicitly rejecting the label "conservative." Some of her followers, who call themselves Objectivists, argue for legalizing prostitution and drug sales, even if they find the practices unwise. So, while Rand is for free markets, conservatives usually do not want them to be quite as free as she would have them.

Sen. Paul and other fans, like Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin or commentators Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, surely do not look to atheist Rand for religious guidance. But, many accept her economic ideology. More mainstream economic liberalism holds that industry is the path to peace and improved standards of living for all. This means ultimately, though, that the value of markets has to do with when and how they benefit everyone's lives.

Hardline believers in industry see limitations on free enterprise as obstacles to individuality and to the benefits of competition and association. It is reasonable to ask, however, why it is a Christian or a conservative should necessarily have unwavering faith in markets and self-interest, particularly when excess focus on oneself is such a central vice according to Scripture, and desire for dollars is commonly taken to be worship of worldliness.

Rand's most famous follower today is Alan Greenspan. Greenspan believed thoroughly in the power of markets and in the virtue of deregulating them. People right and left have credited the economic growth during Greenspan's chairmanship of the Federal Reserve to his efforts. He was shocked, however, to see the recent economic downturn.

In light of the last few years' economic hardships, it is remarkable that people today can continue to follow Rand as thoroughly as her fans like Sen. Paul do. After all, when markets undermined themselves, Greenspan admitted that his ideology was clearly flawed.

"Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself included," Greenspan said in 2008, "are in a state of shocked disbelief."

When asked about his ideology and whether he still believes it to be right, Greenspan conceded: "I've found a flaw. I don't know how significant or how permanent it is. But I've been very distressed by that fact."

Some ideologues will want to lay the blame on government whenever they can, calling attention to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those respondents are surely right to add all players into the mix of responsibility for the recent recession. At the same time, economic wizard Greenspan did not forget about those institutions when he made his admission. He realized that markets can foolishly sabotage themselves, devastating not only them and their shareholders, but also the nation's and the world's economies.

Excessive belief in any ideology is the problem. The answer is not communism. It is not anarchy. The right thing to do is almost always a matter of reconciling competing values. The trouble with the recent surge in Rand's popularity is that it has directly correlated with a widening schism of ideologies that close their eyes even to lessons from their champions, like Greenspan.

Though Rand's ideas are quite radical, she could be a heroine to many groups. Liberal Democrats may like some of her social ideas. Small government Republicans may love her views about industry and the individual. But conservatives who like Ayn Rand are an odd match. Rand would be an ardent critic of many of their initiatives, including the proposed "personhood amendment" initiative, which may end up on Mississippi's 2011 ballot.

If conservatives or economic liberals of any stripe want a more mainstream hero, why not look to Adam Smith? Smith was not dismissive of charity. He believed the central value of industry was its contribution to the general welfare of humankind.

It is well known that Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, but he also wrote a book called The Theory of Moral Sentiments, largely unknown to advocates of free enterprise.

Smith was a moral philosopher who would welcome the following questions: What are markets good for? Why seek economic growth? If the answers are to raise the standard of living for all, to improve the welfare of the worst off in society, then he would think the goal is noble. Markets are good when they help people. When they do not, regulation becomes necessary and either charity, government action, or both must fill the need to help fellow human beings flourish.

The belief that people are better off when industry is entirely free clashes with conservative values and constraints on many markets. It also ignores the abuses some businesses commit.

Of course, representatives of government can make mistakes or do wrong. When troubles spread, however, the common denominator is neither business nor government. It is people acting carelessly and unchecked.

So yes, value industry highly and watch over government, Smith would argue, but never forget to be thy brother's keeper.

Eric Thomas Weber, Ph.D., is assistant professor of Public Policy Leadership at the University of Mississippi. His second book, Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy, comes out this July and his third book, Democracy and Leadership, will be released in 2012. He is expressing his own viewpoint in this article. To contact, visit EricThomasWeber.org.

News about a Book in Development, Plus Upcoming Piece on Ayn Rand

2011-06-10T14:35:00.000-07:00

(As always, you can learn more about my writing at www.EricThomasWeber.org.)

In May, my wife and I had the most relaxing vacation that I can remember. One day, I decided to do a little writing just for fun while Annie was napping. It felt great. I put together a few pages on a topic that I think is important and that would be relatively easy and fun to write more about. I have since been thinking of it as a book project. I've pitched the idea to a literary agent contact in NYC, who has responded well to it. The book would (tentatively) be called The Meaning of Moderation: On the Virtue of Centrism in Politics.

The main idea is to talk about the amazing divide that has widened between the political voices in the public sphere. Aristotle, as well as a number of other important philosophers, have argued quite persuasively that virtue is a matter of the mean between extremes of behavior. I don't want to say too much about this project at such an early stage, but it is pretty exciting and has gotten me energized about a new writing project.

Working on the issue of moderation, however, has made me more attuned than usual to the voices that push hard lines. Lately, we've seen Senator Rand Paul (KY) and others talking about Ayn Rand, even quoting her in official meetings. Thinking about her and others like Senator Bernie Sanders's (VT) socialist stance got me thinking about how odd a match Ayn Rand is for G.O.P., but for others as well. She has fans across the political spectrum, given her stances on small government as well as her liberal social views.

Questions about how to think about Rand and the odd kind of political inspiration she must be for some folks inspired me to write a piece about her fit in American politics. I thought it might be a stab at thinking about political moderation on the topic of business and government regulation, therefore connected to the Meaning of Moderation project. The piece is a newspaper op-ed that will come out in The Clarion Ledger around early July. When that comes out, I'll post it here on my blog, as I've done with earlier pieces.

Finally, some general news about my writing: My second book, Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy, is now out in the U.K. and will be released in the U.S. in July. Plus, my third book, Democracy and Leadership, will be done this summer, to come out in 2012 with Lexington Books. I'm still working on revisions to my proposal for my fourth book, Culture Bound: Overcoming Self-Fulfilling Prophecies of Failure in Education. Plus, I've started hearing good news about the sales of my first book, a pretty technical one called Rawls, Dewey, and Constructivism. This is welcome news, mainly because once it has sold a certain number of copies (getting close, I think), the publisher may decide to release it as a paperback, which would be much cheaper and would be much more accessibly priced, therefore, for a lot of people (poor scholars and grad students!). Finally, two reviews have come out about RDC. One by Shane Ralston is on Amazon.com here and the other by Richard Cotter will come out in Political Studies Review, but is available now here on Academia.edu.

Thanks for reading!

"Liberty, Health Care Reform Fit," my piece in the Clarion Ledger, 1/30/11.

2011-01-30T15:09:00.000-08:00

Visit my Web site here: http://www.ericthomasweber.org

To read a scanned PDF version of this article, click here. The following is the text from the article:

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Liberty, Health Care Reform Fit

(The Clarion Ledger, Sunday, January 30, 2011, p. 13B)

OXFORD -"It's about liberty," said Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, explaining his opposition to the health care mandate. He continued, "Even the president and Congress must act within the boundaries set by the Constitution." Of course, on both counts Cuccinelli is right.

Federal judges have ruled in conflicting ways recently on the health insurance mandate, which will require all Americans either to buy health insurance or to pay a tax penalty. Federal Judge Henry Hudson of Virginia argued that the government did not make its case successfully in demonstrating the limits of the commerce clause in the Constitution. The worry is that without a clear limit on congressional power, the people could suffer endless encroachment on individual liberty. So, if the government will be successful in defending its federal mandate, it needs to clarify a limiting principle for interfering in people's lives.

There is a rich and complex tradition of thought about liberty that defies oversimplification. What is fascinating about the debate on health care is that the federal mandate is justified by the idea that not having healthcare is said to affect others. How can one person's inactivity harm others? We have answers to this question in a number of areas. If Tom is drowning and Jack chooses not to throw him an available life preserver, Jack can be charged with negligence. Jack's inactivity is seen as a choice for which we hold him responsible.

More directly, the argument is that individuals who do not have health insurance show up at emergency rooms all the time. Hospitals with emergency rooms cannot turn them away. Imagine a doctor who confronts a choking child. If he were to start looking for the child's wallet and insurance card, we would be astonished. The same problem for hospitals translates to hugely expensive emergency room costs. People with insurance, therefore, are charged more money so that hospitals can stay in business. That means that people who have insurance pay indirectly for all the people who do not have insurance. So, the inactivity of choosing not to purchase health insurance can clearly raise costs for others.

One could argue, of course, that some people may not choose to go to emergency rooms when they are sick and have opted out of health insurance. Two issues arise here. The first is that many instances of taking people to emergency rooms do not allow for choice. If Alice is hurt in a car accident and is unconscious, we treat her. We do not wait until she wakes up to then ask whether she wants emergency service. Second, the mandate for health insurance does not actually require you to purchase health insurance. This is perhaps the most startling point. You can opt out if you are willing to pay a tax penalty.

Tax penalties are a form of coercion, of course, but people choose them all the time, such as in seeking extensions for paying income taxes later than is required. Think about other forms of government coercion, furthermore, like the military draft we had just a generation ago. An option to accept a tax penalty instead of serving would have represented a significant expansion of freedom for those who opposed war.

The problem remains that unless we know the limits to the government's justifiable encroachments on individual liberty, we should all be worried. In that sense, it is important to agree with Cuccinelli that the point here concerns liberty. Liberty can be our guide in deciding about the proper limits of government interference. Among the most important writers on the subject of liberty was John Stuart Mill. He argued that the only time government is justified in limiting an individual's liberty is when that person limits the liberty of others or harms others without their consent. So, boxing is OK as long as the boxers agree to the match. But, it is not all right when Lisa punches Sam without Sam's consent to fight.

A number of libertarian thinkers have refined Mill's formulation. Joel Feinberg, for instance, explained that the idea of harming others is not so simple. It does not always involve direct injuries. We hide pornography behind magazine counters because Brad's freedom to purchase his magazines indirectly affects Maxine's desire to raise her children free from exposure to such adult matters. Also, think about why tax evasion is a crime. Al Capone's tax crimes did not directly hurt others, but affected citizens indirectly. The people had to take on more responsibility for public needs than if Capone had paid his fair share. This is an indirect form of harm, but one that is important and troubling. We make it illegal for a good reason.

In the case of the Affordable Care Act, the mandate is intended to address indirect harms. The claim is that to lack insurance coverage leaves the rest of us on the hook for taking care of you when you get into an accident or show up at an emergency room, something that happens regularly. So, the justification one could give from the libertarian point of view is that it is permissible to limit an individual's liberty regarding health insurance when that person's exercise of liberty harms others. In the end, then, the issue is indeed one of liberty, but that does not mean we should abandon the health care mandate. It means instead that the debate is really about whether or not individuals who choose to opt out of health insurance negatively affect others.

So, when cases about the federal mandate reach the U.S. Supreme Court, one way to explain the limit to the government's justifiable encroachments upon liberty could be this libertarianism principle, known as the harm principle. We can say that Congress ought to limit its interference in people's lives when there is no great social cost to individuals in the form of non-consensual direct or indirect harms. Where people are not harming others without their consent, let them be.

I have only argued here on the basis of what libertarians call negative freedom, freedom that has to do with avoiding imposition or encroachments on people's liberty. There is a complex set of values built on the idea of positive liberty, which we see represented in American public schools and universities, for example. The motivation behind support for positive liberty is the idea that individuals ought to have a chance to pursue happiness and meaning in life. That form of argument could be offered about health care, but I have focused instead here on the less controversial approach to make a point.

In countless cases, individuals who lack health insurance are taken to emergency rooms or go to them on their own. The indirect harm done is clear. Thus, it seems that the health care mandate can be supported even with the less controversial libertarian harm principle based on negative freedom.

Cuccinelli is right about one thing: the issue of the federal mandate is indeed about liberty.

Eric Thomas Weber, Ph.D., is assistant professor of Public Policy Leadership at the University of Mississippi. Here he is expressing only his own point of view. His second book, Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy, will be published in June and his third book, Democracy and Leadership, will be released in 2012.

You can visit the Clarion Ledger Web site here.

"Health Law Repeal Would Toss Out Baby with Bathwater," my piece in The Clarion Ledger, 10/24/10

2010-10-23T23:08:00.000-07:00

Click here to open the scanned version.

http://www.ericthomasweber.org
Here is my article that came out today in The Clarion Ledger. The article is called "Health Law Repeal Would Toss Out Baby with Bathwater." You can open a scanned Adobe PDF version of the article by clicking here or by clicking on the link below the photo.

The regular text version of the article is here below. I hope that this piece will have contributed helpfully to the debate regarding the Affordable Care act. I've already received some very encouraging emails about the piece. Thank you all for your encouragement. Here's the piece:

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Health Law Repeal Would Toss Out Baby with Bathwater

In the “Pledge to America,” some Republicans call for repeal of the Affordable Care Act. If you want to amend the act, that is one thing, but outright repeal will hurt my family and many others. People need to know what is good in the act so that we don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. If Republicans want my vote, they need to differentiate what is right on target in the bill and what is worth reconsidering. There are at least six ways the healthcare act has already benefited my daughter tremendously. I’ll give just two examples.
* In 2007, my daughter Helen was born and suffered a stroke. This happens to one in six thousand children. Just one of our many, many bills was for $100,000, which charged only for her stay in the hospital for her first month of life. That did not include doctors’ visits, medicines, tests, the helicopter flight to the specialist hospital, etc. The $1,000,000 lifetime cap on benefits that my insurance plan imposed per beneficiary might sound great to the inexperienced reader, but it can run out very quickly. Were we to run out, my wife and I would certainly sell everything we have, go into bankruptcy, and get on Medicaid. I would do what I have to do to save my little girl.

The healthcare bill made this unnecessary. I can sleep better at night. My daughter will have coverage as long as I pay my premiums and as long as she needs care. My insurance company can no longer cap benefits in the way that it did, in a blanket fashion for each person. A simple call for repealing healthcare does not tell me whether those advocates will defend my daughter or return us to the frightening system we had before.

Repeal of the healthcare act is no solution. The answer: talk of amending the act, not of repealing it. Let’s keep the baby and lose the bathwater.

* A second crucial element of the act concerns pre-existing conditions. How many Americans want insurance companies to be able to deny children coverage because of pre-existing conditions? My daughter didn’t give herself an ailment. She suffered a brain infarction at birth. That is precisely why she needs coverage, yet this was reason people in the past would try to deny support. That is simply outrageous, a moral bankruptcy. So long as the Democrats alone defend this measure, they will have many people’s votes. Repeal is not the answer. Keep this measure. Amend the act where needed – don’t repeal it.

I love the references to the nation's Founders we’ve been hearing lately. We should look more closely, though. My favorite Republican of all time was Ben Franklin. He was a man of compromise. He did not think the Constitution was perfect, quite the opposite. His speech about it was titled “I agree to this Constitution with all its faults”! The Founders knew that they could only move forward with compromise and with plans for how they would in time amend what was wrong while preserving what was right in what they had done. If you want change and if you want votes, tell us exactly what you will change and what you will keep. Outright repeal of the healthcare bill will hurt my family and the families of Democrats, Republicans, and independents all over the country.

Dr. Eric Thomas Weber is assistant professor of Public Policy Leadership at the University of Mississippi, expressing only his own point of view in this article. His second book, Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy, will be released in 2011 and his third book, Democracy and Leadership, is in progress. Visit EricThomasWeber.org.

"Choosing Civility: The Lemonade Lesson," Clarion Ledger Article from 9/19/10

2010-09-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

Link to scan of the first page of "Choosing Civility"

Today, September 19th, 2010, The Clarion Ledger published a piece I contributed for them called "Choosing Civility: The Lemonade Lesson." Once again, I benefited from the editors' excellent headline abilities, since my titles are never as punchy. Mine are always more descriptive. Anyway, I'm learning! First, here is a link to a PDF scan of the article. Along with that you'll find the text from an additional piece that the editors put together as a follow-up article. This really made the opinion and perspectives sections today nicely unified in addressing a common point. Kudos to the Clarion Ledger folks.

I should also mention that I was honored to have Marshall Ramsey (his Clarion Ledger blog and his own blog) create some excellent art to go with my piece. Here's the graphic:

Here is the text of my article:

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Choosing civility

On a hot summer day, young girls gave out lemonade in their neighborhood. The fact that they were not charging for their kindness launched columnist Terry Savage of the Chicago Sun-Times into a rage. According to Savage, these girls were the problem with America and a symptom of it.

Savage yelled "No!" at the girls and berated them. They were giving away their parents' property, Savage thought, assuming that the girls had no allowance of their own to use as they pleased. She failed to imagine that their parents intended to instill a spirit of giving in their children. To her the only point of a lemonade stand is to learn about business, never about the value of charity or kindness. Just think of how mad Savage must be about Jesus' miracle of feeding the multitudes, which, according to her logic, contributed to inflation and involved giving away his father's property.

The lemonade story is a clear example of the problem of incivility in America. In his recent book, Democracy and Moral Conflict, philosopher Robert Talisse has argued that incivility is one of the greatest threats to democracy in our country. National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman Jim Leach, a 30-year Republican congressman from Iowa, has been touring the country to talk about the great need for civility today. Talisse and Leach have noticed the rise of incivility in the country and are as concerned as I am about it.

Incivility has been severe many times in the last few years. In 2007, MoveOn.org took out a large advertisement attacking U.S. Gen. David Patraeus. Sounding like mean-spirited school children, they asked: "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?"

More recently, town hall meetings around the country devolved quickly into screaming matches in which detractors wanted to avoid sincere debate about the need for health care reform. U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's 2009 speech before Congress was equally troubling, though he has since apologized. Often the same people criticize President Obama for spending too much and then admonish all efforts to find cost saving strategies for reforming health care. Our problems are too big to be solved with partisan attacks and the avoidance of debate.

Conservative David Frum was right on target when he argued that unwillingness to engage in civil debate on health care reform meant that Republicans missed a real opportunity to shape the legislation that passed. Shortly after Frum made these remarks he was dismissed from the American Enterprise Institute, though his following has since grown.

At a time when oil and tar balls have devastated the coastal environment and economy in Mississippi and nearby states, we need civility profoundly. With high unemployment and low funds for Medicaid, we need political cooperation. Americans must tone down the virulence that plagues our debates. The disasters we face offer an opportunity to return to civility, to bring people together to address common problems.

It is fair to ask what civility is, after all. It sometimes sounds like what old people prefer or what the privileged classes call for when oppressed people rise up. No, civility is not necessarily a pacifist ethic. It is a set of at least three moral tenets.

The first rule of civility calls for open and intelligent public debate by means of respectful communication. This rule is broken when people falsify information or inflame the public against understanding groups who disagree. For instance, when Michael Moore shows only the devastation of job losses in Michigan in his film, Roger and Me, he omits any consideration of what happens when American companies fail to remain competitive. The disturbances of the town hall meetings on healthcare are another example of violating this rule.

The second tenet of civility demands respect for fellow citizens - that we see them as stakeholders and sources of insight about what keeps democracy afloat. One way to break this second rule is to demonize opposition. For example, the North Iowa Tea Party put up a billboard that, according to AP, "showed photographs of President Obama, Nazi leader Hitler and communist leader Lenin beneath the labels 'Democrat Socialism,' 'National Socialism,' and 'Marxist Socialism.' " Fortunately, the Tea Party members in Iowa came to see that the sign reflected poorly on them and they removed it.

It is difficult to imagine civil discourse between people who demonize each other. Consider CNN's reports in 2009 that "threats on the life of the president of the United States have now risen by as much as 400 percent since [Obama's] inauguration . . . [which] 'in this environment' go far beyond anything the Secret Service has seen with any other president." This year, past anger about the president's Christian pastor has been replaced with the contradicting pretension that he is a Muslim. Not only are these developments and the conflict over the building of mosques in New York and Tennessee disturbing for their efforts to demonize opposition, but they also treat Muslims as though they don't deserve the same freedom of religion as the rest of us. As citizens and voters, we must demand that our leaders address our real problems as a nation instead of stoking prejudices. Fortunately, we have a chance to make such a statement this November.

The third rule of civility calls for respect for public institutions. In the heat of the moment, it can be difficult to accept the slow bureaucratic processes of the courts, but public institutions do something very important when they slow us down. They force us to wait, to allow anger to cool, and to let reason take over. Time and calmness are needed for intelligent thought and discussion. Without them, we get vigilantism, as in the murder of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas.

Of course, respect for public institutions does not mean that we must avoid criticizing them. In fact, in America, criticism is a chief virtue. It is the most powerful tool for reforming unjust, ineffective, and wasteful practices. In that sense, then, respect for institutions requires scrutiny and criticism. These things are only meaningful, however, if it is possible for institutions to do better than they do. So, even civil criticism of public institutions implies optimism about the promise of better democratic governance.

Civility is not an empty term. It represents a class of virtues that we must foster in schools and in public debates. If constitutional democracy is worthwhile, it is because of its potential for intelligent social action. It can help the greatest number of people to be happy while respecting the rights of those who would fight even against civility itself.

We must not follow Savage's example. A civil answer to an offer of lemonade is "thank you." America today needs voices to be civil. The battle for civility is endless, to be sure, but without it we debase democracy and choose moral blindness over vision.

Dr. Eric Thomas Weber is assistant professor of Public Policy Leadership at the University of Mississippi, expressing only his own point of view in this article. His second book, Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy, will be released in 2011. Contact him at etweber@olemiss.edu.

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You can visit my Web site here: http://www.ericthomasweber.org.

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Here is the follow-up article by the editors at The Clarion Ledger:

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Civility: Agreeable disagreements

(by the editors of The Clarion Ledger)

As much more eloquently expressed in today's Perspective essay by University of Mississippi assistant professor of Public Policy Leadership Eric Thomas Weber, can't we just all get along?

No, that's not the real question nor is it even a plausible question. Of course we can't just all get along.

We are Americans. We disagree. It's in our national DNA. We have a constitutional right to disagree in a nation founded on the principles of guaranteed freedoms and the pursuit - at least - of happiness.

But must we disagree so disagreeably? Must we demonize those with whom we disagree? And most of all, must we engage in an ever-escalating war of character assassination and what has come to be called the politics of personal destruction in the process.

The concept of the loyal opposition in this nation is not-so-slowly disappearing and being replaced by those who value "calling out" and "taking down" those with whom they disagree far more than a civil debate of the issues in which the ultimate goal is the common good.

America over the last two decades has become increasingly polarized - left and right, liberal and conservative, progressive and patriot, black and white, rich and poor, hawk and dove.

It is as if America's political landscape is becoming - like professional wrestling - a carefully scripted pantomime of hero versus heel. One wonders what Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas would make of modern American political debate were they to tune in to the more animated discussions of the more extreme commentators on both MSNBC or Fox News on any given night.

What is lost in the growing incivility of public discourse at every level is the sense of American community.

In their debates, Lincoln expressed an admiration for the oratorical skills of his opponent Douglas: "With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed."

Competition is good, particularly in the marketplace of ideas. Spirited, passionate debate from all corners of the political spectrum is healthy and fosters the germination and growth of ideas that lead to progress.

But the level of incivility that reigns in this country today breeds political gridlock and division that threatens to paralyze government at a critical juncture in the nation's history. How much progress our nation could make if we pulled together half as hard as we pull against each other on a daily basis.

- Editors at The Clarion Ledger. Visit The Clarion Ledger here.

Update on disability story and on next submission to the Clarion Ledger

2010-08-07T13:24:00.000-07:00

Update on piece on disability

Those of you who had a chance to read my Oxford Eagle article on disability and the effects of Medicaid cuts to people here in Northern Mississippi might be interested in a short update.

The excellent news is that a week after the piece came out, John Robert Phillips, the little boy who needs cochlear implants, has been approved for coverage through Medicaid. Of course these things may have been worked out entirely independently of the article, but who knows. If talking about the issue helped move things along even slightly, I'd be very happy about it. Even if it did not, that is fine too, since it is important to keep people aware of important matters like the one that the Phillips had to confront. Congratulations, Rachel and John Robert!

My remaining worry is for all the people who either cannot or do not know how to be as strong advocates as some can be for their children. Medicaid cuts, therefore, will affect more profoundly the poor and less educated persons with disabilities. If you know of anyone in Mississippi or in nearby states who could use some help, send them my contact information (email: etweber@olemiss.edu, phone: 662.915.1336). As a faculty member at the University of Mississippi, I have the opportunity and some avenues for writing about matters like these, to call some attention to problems that need to be addressed.

Info on next submission to the Clarion Ledger

I am happy to report that I have today sent in a piece I wrote for the Clarion Ledger on the subject of incivility in America. If it is a match for my editor's goals for the piece, then I'll be posting a scan and the text here soon. If not, I'll post an update on where I'm headed with the project. On the back burner, I'm slow cooking a book project on the subject of civility. The challenge at the moment is to figure out how to get the people who need to read it to want to read it. Until I can figure out the solution to that problem, the project will do more for the choir than for the congregation. OK, that's a lot of metaphors in a row... Come visit again soon for an update on this developing piece.

"Disability's Financial Crisis," my piece in July 6's Oxford Eagle

2010-07-07T08:05:00.000-07:00

Here is the article I wrote for July 6's Oxford Eagle, "Disability's Financial Crisis." You can read a scan of the original article in Adobe PDF form here.

Note in the last paragraph/bio blurb that I've listed the dates for a symposium I'm organizing on ethics and disability. If you can attend, I hope you will. It promises to be a wonderful event. I'll post more information closer to the event as more specifics become available. The organization which I'm planning this symposium is the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA), which you can learn more about here: http://www.philosophersinamerica.com.

Here's the HTML version of "Disability's Financial Crisis":

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Disability’s Financial Crisis

Cuts to Medicaid are having devastating effects on persons with disabilities around the country and Lafayette County is no exception. The Wall Street Journal recently related stories of the effects of the cuts, including for 67 year old Barbara Hickey of SC, whose reduced care would require her to “sit in a soiled diaper” for hours if she needed to use the bathroom between nurse visits. In countless examples like this one, short-term cuts are made at the expense of citizens with disabilities.

Among the victims of cuts to Medicaid are children. One example in Mississippi is John Robert Phillips who is supported in part through Medicaid for children with disabilities living at home. His mother Rachel told me that her son was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome and later with nerve deafness. John Robert is a candidate for cochlear implants. “I did not have trouble getting Medicaid last year,” Phillips explained, “but this year … Medicaid is wanting more evaluations and proof that he deserves” care.

Denial ahead?

Their case worker told Phillips that in Mississippi deafness and blindness are not considered major disabilities. They have not yet been denied coverage. Phillips’ worries are understandable nonetheless given that her son’s doctors predict that without the implants, John Robert may never learn to speak. Lifelong deafness and inability to speak are surely more costly to society than a one-time surgery for cochlear implants.

In Lafayette County, cuts to Medicaid are not the only problem. According to Physical Therapist (PT) Sally Clancy, who treats my daughter Helen, the need for PT is significant. Treatment options are growing, but children need far more attention than they are getting. The Project RUN Early Intervention program, which helps children up to the age of three, advertised a PT position which failed to garner a single applicant even in the middle of a recession with high unemployment. The job of PT, no longer listed, was set to pay between $46,300.44 and $81,025.77, according to Project RUN Early Intervention Program Director Darlene Hoar of the North Mississippi Regional Center.

Clancy said that she was not surprised that no one applied. “Working with children takes a special kind of person no matter what the discipline… Unfortunately, it all comes down to money,” she explained.

A big need

A PT who works with adults can treat four, five, or six at once, having each exercise as the PT cycles from one to the next. When you work with an infant who cannot sit on his or her own, however, the only solution is one on one care. In short, even in a recession the market is not filling a crucial need to help innocent, suffering children. In a period of high unemployment, people must become aware of the great need for more therapists.

Even when services are available, many “families have been denied coverage this year, even though they had been covered in the past,” says Clancy. When “children will go without the services they need,” as Clancy knows they do, we must see this problem as a crisis on a par with the others we face today.

Clancy told me another story about the troubles of availability of services and cuts to Medicaid that sums up the problem. A girl who was brought to her has an individual education plan (IEP) from her school calling for 15 minutes of PT per month. In surprise, Clancy checked to see what goals could possibly be the target of only a few minutes of monthly therapy. The IEP set no goals for PT. Making matters worse, those 15 minutes of therapy were then used as the reason why Medicaid would not pay for any PT outside of school.

Remember everyone

As a country we are facing financial crises, but persons with disabilities are confronting crises also. We cannot claim to be a moral nation if we save ourselves at the expense of persons with disabilities. Markets rebound and allow us to repay debts in time. John Robert Phillips has only one chance to learn to speak, however, and needs surgery now.

If you are concerned about cuts to Medicaid here in Mississippi, let our Oxford and Lafayette county representatives and senator know.

Dr. Eric Thomas Weber is assistant professor Public Policy Leadership at the University of Mississippi and is expressing only his own point of view in this article. His second book, Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy will be released in 2011. He is organizing a symposium on ethics and disability for February 25–26, 2011. Email etweber@olemiss.edu to be added to the contact list for the event. Information for parents about disabilities and care can be found on the Mississippi Parent Training and Information Center Web site: http://www.mspti.org/.

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Although the paper did not print the phone numbers of the representatives and state senator that I hoped they would include, you can find their info here on the Oxford city Web site: http://www.oxfordms.net/component/zoo/item/area-elected-officials.html
To make it easier, here are their numbers: MS House Rep. Noal Akins: 662-236-2473, MS House Rep. Tommy Reynolds: 662-473-2571, MS State Senator Gray Tollison: 662-234-7070.

Change.org's article on my new project

2010-07-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

I don't know Change.org well, but the piece they've put together for it on my new project is a nice little summary of what I'm working on regarding poverty and education in Mississippi. The article here may or may not stay up - such is the world of internet writing. It seems there is quite a demand for people to think about how to address the problems of poverty and educational failure, though. This little article is one of about 7 or so times the same kind of short review has been written on the work I'm doing. I think it's great to get the word out. Maybe it will help as I make my case to the funding agencies for the project. I'll keep you posted.

Amazon.com Author's Page

2010-06-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

I have recently setup my Amazon.com author's page. It allows you to post a photo and a little biographical information. It may also grab these blog posts, though I haven't gotten that to work yet. If you're reading this on Amazon's author page, scratch that last remark.

For anyone interested in what I'm working on next, I'm finishing up a book right now called Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy, which will be released with Continuum Press also (the publisher for my first book). This summer, I'm finishing up work on three other proposals. The first one is for my next academic book, Democracy and Leadership, which you can learn about on my Web site's writings page. Next, I'm developing a book with a colleague on the moral, political, and economic promise of expanding internet access in rural Mississippi. Finally, I'm developing a project on civility, which will be intended for wide audiences. I've got a number of other projects in the works, but these are three that are on my mind at the moment. If you're interested in learning about a few other books I'm developing, visit my writings page, where I list a few more projects in development or email me to talk about it.

A bit more writing worth mentioning are a few pieces I'm putting together for Mississippi media outlets. First, I'm writing a piece on civility for The Clarion Ledger and another on rural access to disability services in Mississippi for The Oxford Eagle. Some new developments are starting up too for me to get on Mississippi Public Broadcasting's radio show to talk about disabilities and special needs in education, but that development is still new. I'll post more as there is more to say about it.

Clarion Ledger Article from 6/10/10: "Cultural Divides: Barriers Remain to Educational Attainment"

2010-06-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

This article came out this past Sunday in The Clarion Ledger. If you've got feedback for me on it, feel free to email me at etweber@olemiss.edu. Here's the text of the article.

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Cultural Divides: Barriers Remain to Educational Attainment

Mississippi appears to be stuck in a vicious Catch-22, which accompanies the state's troubled racial history. On the one hand, Gov. Haley Barbour has noted that education is the No. 1 economic development issue in the state. At the same time, poverty and racial stereotyping inhibit educational success. The problem appears irresolvable.

Two reactions are common. The first one says things are not so bad in Mississippi - the denial of failure. The second sees failure everywhere and expects nothing else of the state - the prophecy of failure. Exceptional students who overcome adversity are proof for the deniers and negative stories about Mississippi are confirmation for the prophets of failure.

Both views are troubling. Most people have a hard time denying the state's great problems. Some think that if only we would quit pointing out Mississippi's troubles, we could get people to invest here and to grow business. There is some truth to this concern, but ignoring real problems only lets them grow. My own optimism for the future of the state comes from the fact that the Catch-22 is only apparent. It can be overcome. The difficult problem falls on the side of the pessimists. They create and sustain self-fulfilling prophecies of failure.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is an error of reasoning. When people commit this fallacy, they call some circumstance inevitable and then, through their own actions or inaction, they make it true. The conclusion they draw from the experience is that they were right: the outcome was inevitable.

Take an example from baseball. A kid who says he will never get a hit decides not to swing. When the third strike whizzes by, he says "See! There was no way I was going to get a hit!"

Failure in baseball has miniscule effects compared with failure in school. Imagine the same thought process at work when a student believes that he or she cannot succeed on a test. If messages continue to predict poor students' failure in education, we should not be surprised when some think there is no point to school.

A number of my students told me about their experiences in transition to college and gave me permission to pass on their messages. The first four are African-American students and the fifth is white. Christopher Cox said: "My high school guidance counselors told me that coming from my background that I would struggle during my tenure. They said that I should attend junior college. This increased my doubt in myself being able to achieve at a four-year institution . . . these statements were discouraging, " he said.

Chris will be a senior in the fall at the University of Mississippi and has a bright future ahead of him.

Nick Luckett shared with me the fact that some members of his community warned him against coming to UM in particular. They told him "Don't go there. You'll get killed." Clearly this warning was racially motivated.

But other teachers told him he would be better off attending a community college, rather than a four-year institution, advice with economic implications. He explained: "Despite all the negativity I received because I decided to come to Ole Miss, I have had a great experience here at this university and I am so glad that I came."

Next, Andre' Cotten and Melissa Cole, both inductees in the UM Student Hall of Fame, have related difficult transitions to college. Andre' wrote that "from my experience, I find that some prospective minority students get discouraged because of the stigma of social injustice that some people who are not familiar with the Ole Miss community attach to our university . . . on the contrary, from my experience as an undergraduate I found that there seems to be a comfortable place for everyone to fit within the Ole Miss family."

Melissa explained that "when I told my friends, neighbors and fellow church members that I would attend Ole Miss, I was always asked 'Why?' or was received with a frown." Certainly racial history played an important role in the culture that inspired these forms of discouragement, but it is important to notice the economic impact that comes along with it.

Finally, Brent Caldwell, one of my white students self-described as a person from a modest financial background, has explained to me that he has "a few friends whose parents didn't go (to college) and who gave them the attitude of 'well we didn't need to go to school; why do you?' . . . Unfortunately, most of these friends never went on to college or flamed out of community colleges." Brent explained that between himself and his former friends, he experienced a "palpable feeling of class difference there," which ended a number of his friendships.

In examples like these I see a symptom of what appears to be happening at all levels in the state. There is still an outlook that inspires people to think that certain institutions and successes are not "for us," for poor African Americans or whites, or for Mississippians generally. These attitudes are observable at many levels, despite the shining examples that contradict them.

The cultural challenges for Mississippi impact us all. When people get too used to hearing negative things about Mississippi, they become more likely to accept low expectations for the state. We need the opposite. We need high expectations, but without denying the problems we face.

Something very important for cultural leadership is at work in the examples of the successful students I have mentioned. I have asked my students how they overcame discouragements from going to college or from coming to the University of Mississippi.

Their answers are often that "I knew her" or "I knew him." Students saw examples of success and wanted it for themselves. A crucial component of leadership in educational attainment in Mississippi must come from a few individuals who swim against the powerful currents of discouragement. When they succeed, others can see that their own prospects might also be bright. The more our students succeed and are visible, the harder it becomes to assume that failure in school is the only option.

My proposal to overcome the apparent Catch-22 is simple: We must fight culture with culture and on many fronts. One way I suggest we do it is with a documentary. There are countless examples of success that we can show kids in Mississippi to contradict the harsh discouragements that many children confront. We have rich resources in our fantastic students who must be talked about, who must be shown to others as the exemplars that they are. A growing number of students have overcome self-fulfilling prophecies of failure. With a documentary we can highlight our many successful students.

We can make the video available for classrooms and public television, but we can also post it online for each student to watch through our expanding avenues of communication that technology has enabled. I envision a viral video that students can access directly on computers at school or in local libraries, to circumvent the common channels of discouragement.

Such efforts could be just the kind of force needed to turn today's cultural current around, to replace a negative and discouraging culture with a culture of excellence.

Dr. Eric Thomas Weber is assistant professor of Public Policy Leadership at the University of Mississippi, expressing only his own point of view in this article. His second book, Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy, will be released in 2011. Contact him at etweber@olemiss.edu.

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I've got a scanned version of this file here, in case you'd like to see the original printed version. You can visit my Web site here or send me feedback via email at etweber@olemiss.edu.

Clarion Ledger Article from 3/6/10: "Try Charter Schools Experiment Where Others Failing"

2010-06-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

This was my first piece as a guest columnist for The Clarion Ledger. This article was published on March 6, 2010, page 9A. Here's the text:

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In January, three University of Mississippi undergraduates advocated for charter schools before the Mississippi House Committee on Education out of concern for the crisis of education in the state. The Public Policy Leadership majors, Chelsea Caveny, Cortez Moss and Alex McLelland, met resistance to partial measures for progress.

Aside from a few vocal opponents, the general response from Republicans in the room was positive and some Democrats were cautiously open to charter schools. The most vocal opponents of charter school legislation worried about the children who stay behind in traditional schools. One representative exclaimed: “Separate but unequal!”

I can understand the resistance. If charter schools only help some, are they not institutions that tell others to wait? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had to explain time and time again “why we can’t wait.” He was a great opponent of the numbing gradualism of his day. Being patient is not something suffering people can easily stomach. Despite this powerful motivation, however, the objection to gradualism is misapplied when it comes to charter schools. Charter schools represent the potential, certainly not a guarantee, for substantial progress in education in the state.

At the committee meeting in January, three worries arose. First, if charter schools are the answer, why not overhaul the whole system to follow their method? In response to this concern, the issue is not a desire for progress to be slow. Rather, what is needed is sincere experimentation. In different states and regions, different methods work well or poorly. Charter schools need fine-tuning. Good experimenters, furthermore, don’t stop after one try. Once a model is successful in our state, we should replicate it then and then only, as the urban prep schools did in Chicago.

The second worry that our legislators raised was that charter schools may not work as well in rural areas. There are clear exceptions to this concern, however, such as the KIPP schools (Knowledge Is Power Programs) which have locations in Helena-West Helena, Ark. What seemed to be lacking in the legislators’ responses to the students’ presentation was the will to try, to experiment with new ideas. Innovation and change require openness of mind to the possibilities that others may not have attempted.

A final concern came up. In the accusing charge of “separate but unequal!” was the reasonable worry people have about achievement gaps between white and minority students. This week, the House version of the charter school legislation made sure to emphasize that charters could be established only in replacing schools with a three-year track record of failure. This requirement would ensure that charters be created only where schools most need help, not simply as alternatives for already advantaged students.

Charter school legislation is moving forward for consideration. What is crucial for the future of Mississippi, I believe, is that we regain the will to experiment and to try new ideas. Charter school legislation may only be a partial measure, a step in a larger plan.

With good legislation written to allay the worries people have about charters, however, the charter school initiative could represent a great step forward and in the right direction.

Dr. Eric Thomas Weber is assistant professor of Public Policy Leadership at the University of Mississippi, expressing only his own point of view in this guest column. His second book, Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy, will be released in 2011.

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I've got a scan of this article here, posted on my Web site in case you'd like to see the original in print. If you'd like to visit my Web site, this link will take you to the main page.

Clarion Ledger writings

2010-06-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

Today I've signed a freelance writer's agreement/contract with The Clarion Ledger to write pieces for their editorial section. I've received permission to post my articles online generally and on my blog here after they've come out in print. I'll post them and label them "Clarion Ledger Article: [Title of article]..." I know, it's a really creative label that required all that explanation...

Anyway, I've been very lucky to have had a strong response to my first two articles in the CL. I've received a number of very nice and encouraging emails. I appreciate everyone's input. Soon I'll post the first two articles I've had come out already. I should have another come out in July and will be sure to post it here as well. Happy reading. Feel free to send me feedback at etweber@olemiss.edu.

Poverty and Education in Mississippi - 1

2010-06-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

Today, the Clarion Ledger published my piece called "Barriers Remain to Educational Attainment." The editors shaped the title. I'm not very experienced writing headlines.

The paper's Web site keeps posts online only for so long, so if this link to the article: http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20100606/OPINION03/6060301/ doesn't work, that's why. For my digital records, I've scanned the article and posted it on my Web site here. You can go directly to the PDF file by clicking here.

An article should be coming out tomorrow too in the Oxford Eagle about the research and documentary plans I'm putting together.

One of the things that I'm planning (as explained in the Clarion Ledger article) is a documentary, highlighting the great successes in education that students have achieved in the face of substantial discouragement. I want kids, teachers, guidance counselors, and parents to see the forces that bear down on less fortunate children as well as the many examples of shining students who have overcome the odds.

For the documentary, I'm looking to setup a database of contacts (full name, full contact information, and info about the person, position, and insight about poverty and education in MS) to have ready once the plan, funding, and personnel line up. If you are interested in taking part and have a unique perspective that can add to addressing the story, email me at etweber@olemiss.edu with the information I've mentioned.

Eventually, I hope to setup a Web site where people could enter their info online to add themselves as persons I could interview for the documentary. I look forward to learning from and with you about Mississippi's cultural challenges. To address them, we need to show them for what they are first. Then, we can work on solutions.

Philosophy and Disability

2010-01-25T19:16:00.000-08:00

Recently, I've started toying with the idea of putting on another SOPHIA symposium, this time on the subjects of Philosophy and Disability. It's a growing field. After putting on a SOPHIA event (http://www.philosophersinamerica.com, click on Events, and see the one called "Ethics at the End of Life"), I've found that these events are fantastic ways to get a jump start into an area of study that I'm generally interested in, but have only a little bit of experience studying.

For those who are unfamiliar, SOPHIA stands for the Society Of PHilosophers In America, which in truth does not say much about what we do. That said, it is a group with a long history and an interest in showing the value of philosophy for real life, as well as in learning more about philosophical studies from people who live the matters that we read and write about. At the event in Oxford, we had nurses, doctors, social workers, lawyers, students, members of Oxford's retired community, pastors, and scholars of religion, philosophy, legals studies, and more. The diversity of the group was exactly what we were hoping to have at the event. The first tenet of SOPHIA as the board has been redesigning the organization is to bring philosophical study to communities that could learn from and teach scholars about their work.

The next element of SOPHIA's purpose is to encourage not only paper presentations, which are an incredibly common form of academic presentations, but conversations too - perhaps primarily. Thus, the person who at a usual conference would serve as a keynote speaker would serve at a SOPHIA event more the function of facilitator of discussion. A specialist in the relevant area of research is important, as is someone who would be a good match for the topic of the event in any number of ways, such as a person who has friends or family dealing with the matter at issue, or who lives certain elements of the matter himself or herself.

The idea for a possible upcoming event that would be of interest to me would be the matter of living with or supporting persons with disabilities, with a philosophical framework of consideration of the various facets of this less common way of living. I am sure a great deal of prejudices must be overcome, as well as negative attitudes in the form of self-fulfilling prophecies. Much more is relevant, though, of course, such as concerns of equal opportunity in education, access to proper health care resources in rural communities, and more.

Anyone who would like to send me ideas about putting on such an event can post comments here or send me an email (etweber@olemiss.edu). I'm thinking about developing a program for sometime in the fall of this year (2010).

Expect Criticism Everywhere

2009-09-23T14:50:00.000-07:00

I think recent news offers a good example of the pressures of leadership. For some time, President Obama left the drafting of the upcoming healthcare bill to Congress (after all, the legislative branch of government). After some time without much concensus, people criticized Obama for having lost the message of his healthcare platform, for being in the background.

After a little more time, planning, and a speech before a joint session of Congress, Obama then went on to give a great number of interviews on Sunday morning talk shows. He was said to have "seized the reins" of his healthcare message.

What response was there for the President's efforts? Journalists and critics argued that he was getting overexposed.

Today, a poll was released to study public opinion on whether the President seemed to be overexposed. The NBC/WSJ poll found that the majority of people did not think so.

I go over these criticisms one could raise about politicians because they help make a point for those thinking about seeking positions of leadership (many of my students). If you want to help people or if you are simply ambitious, just as in the academic world, you must come to expect criticism everywhere.

Whatever good thing you have done, expect even it to be criticized. I do not say this with cynicism. Rather, in the public sphere, we demand justification from one another because of the importance of public offices. Plus, without feedback and criticism we can never improve on our efforts. It also implies that to ever be proud about one's achievements, one must judge when to count a victory. If perfection is an ideal that is unachievable, a leader's criterion for satisfaction in ameliorating problems must be nearer than what is perfect.

Freeman Dyson's Bottom Line Escapes Me

2009-07-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, a fellow I respect recommended I read the NY Times Magazine's article about Freeman Dyson, the "civil heretic." Dyson thinks that politicians have overblown the threat of global warming. He is a decorated scientist and a liberal, who thinks that Al Gore as protagonist of the story of global warming relies on science that is not terribly thorough.

In particular, Dyson thinks that the models of rising water make predictions of the worst case scenario appear more likely than we have evidence to believe. Because of criticisms like this one and the fact that Dyson calls for more study of the matter, he draws criticism from a wide variety of people.

While I think that the shock value of the worst-case scenario is certainly used rhetorically, I think that Dyson's dissent is better targeted when he criticizes the scientists on whom Gore has drawn (and yes, he does this). A few things trouble me about his general aversion to theories of global warming. First, today people generally prefer the language of climate change. The reason for this is that Dyson and others are right - the Earth is not universally getting warmer. The colder regions are staying warmer longer in the hotter periods, which is melting ice at the globe's extremities. Warm regions are not all getting hotter. In fact, in some years, global temperatures may decrease (see BBC article online here).

The next thing that troubles me is the fact that Dyson criticizes the same trouble that he himself commits. He criticizes others for supporting a view that is not terribly specific and well understood, while at the same time arguing with a bit of a straw man version of environmentalists' arguments. What is it he is really challenging? I don't think that the article makes it terribly clear and he himself does not address climate change with extensive study or writing.

So what is the pay out? Some like to say these days that they support green initiatives while not being all that convinced that human beings are raising the temperature of the Earth. Again, the latter is a misunderstanding of climate change. Average temperatures are not necessarily going up. Also, the presumption is that human beings do not have a substantial effect on the environment, really, so why bother too much with restrictive policies?

I think people must travel more to learn the answer. While still in high school, I had the chance to visit Macau. To breathe clean air, my family and I had to run from building to building because of the visible pollutants in the air (is was brown air). It was gross and unhealthy. Friends have told me of the pollution of Mexico City. In other circumstances, regions' resources are frequently depleted, streams are poisoned with the byproduct of some industries and private practices. Clearly human beings have an effect on the environment. Whether Florida will go under water the way Al Gore predicted may not be likely to happen as quickly as he suspects. Nevertheless, Venice has been sinking for a long time and now some island inhabitants in the Indian Ocean are planning their escape from the sea's swallowing rise (Maldive Islands).

As I read about Dyson's claims I wondered why he seemed to lump green initiatives together with somewhat exaggerated political rhetoric. For instance, there is good reason to recycle in big cities. Landfills are expensive, as land is expensive when it is close to big cities. Recycling slows the filling of landfills dramatically. When they are full, you have to travel farther to dump, which costs more fuel and time/labor. Plus, resources are not limitless, so why not reuse some of the land's resources a few times. Cities get recycled materials for free, reprocess them, and then sell them to industry, thus providing public income that is not taxation. When done right, recycling can make money for municipalities. Even if it does not, however, when resources are not limitless, the reuse of them needs to be considered in costs greater than immediate availabilities.

What else is so tough about the green movement? Automobiles could me made more efficient as a requirement. Building codes could be set to follow more efficient standards. When I visited South Korea in 2008, I was astonished at the ubiquity of intelligent coding of buildings for efficiency. Efficiency is an industry. If there is a great cost and danger in whatever Dyson wants to criticize, he has not show it in the social sphere. He is right, however, that if environmental sciences are not rigorous, they should be. I think environmentalists would agree with that view.

In the end, I am left wondering what really drives Dyson so mad policies about climate change. He thinks more should be said and researched about it. I agree. Recycling is not a religion, however, though it is a practice that considers the aggregate impact of individuals' decisions. That sounds like an excellent idea to consider. His idea of trees that could eat up excess carbon dioxide is fun, but why not further his notions (as described in the NY Times article) about solar energy.

Another matter he seems not to have considered are the looming effects of climate changes in agriculture. People will have to move to continue to plant their crops. Those movements may be cause of much conflicts in the years to come. It would not be silly to start some planning about the shifts in agriculture that poor peoples will have difficulty anticipating.

In the end, it sounds to me as though Dyson is angry that politicians have oversimplified the facts about scientific matters. I'm left stunned that someone as smart as him is surprised. Overstatement or no, it is not so damned hard to recycle some cans and to produce cars that double our mileage. Let's put off running out of oil a bit longer. Where is the harm in that?

Obama, Ahmadinejad, and the Moral High Ground

2009-07-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I posted a link on Facebook to this article, about Ahmadinejad's invitation to speak with Obama. I've been thinking about the ways it makes sense to respond to him.

Here's what I said on Facebook:
"This after accusations of meddling? Sounds odd, but is a win-win for him. If Obama does not participate, it'll look like an insult, judgment, and meddling. If he does, Ahmadinejad will take the participation as a sign of the legitimacy of the election, of respect. If Obama participates, he'll be criticized for supporting what many see as an illegitimate victor. If he doesn't, he'll be criticized for not following through on his commitment to open up to the muslim world. Ahmadinejad is not a stupid man."

The decision about how to respond is a tough one. I think the first quality of a smart response would be to wait, be patient, and do nothing initially. The U.S. has a great deal to focus on right now, domestically, and with regard to nations other than Iran. The second thing I think makes sense would be to make the meeting quite public. In this sense, the proposal to meet at the U.N. is a good one.

A colleague of mine and I discussed the weight of each side of the dilemma I have described. The options before Obama are basically two. He can choose not to meet with Ahmadinejad or he can meet with him. What does Obama, America, or the world gain from not meeting with Ahmadinejad? If one wants to protest the elections in Iran, you might think, not meeting with Ahmadinejad could be seen as a statement that challenges his government's legitimacy. To meet with Ahmadinejad, some might say, would be to endorse the tactics he used to suppress his people.

Essentially, I think that this point of view depends on the tenor of the meeting. If Obama were to engage in this meeting casually, making sure not to be interpreted as meddling, the critics would be right. At the same time, Obama could turn the challenge of meddling on its ear. To meddle is a colonialist throwback of illegitimate intrusion. It would be best not to do that. Meddling, however, is quite different from pursuing the moral high ground. My colleague pointed me to this article from the New York Times, which discusses Obama's anti-proliferation agenda.

If Obama were to explain, prior to the meeting, his motivation for meeting with Ahmadinejad, he could diffuse concerns about legitimating the election. The motivation is the higher moral obligation to fight nuclear proliferation, a worry for all people. Also, Obama can go to the meeting critical of Ahmadinejad's administration's violence against his own people. He can compare Iran's election to the disputed, but peaceful transition that the United States underwent in 2000. He can reiterate the value of transparency, the rule of law, and of the moral worry that the whole world must deal with concerning nuclear weapons.

If he meets with Ahmadinejad, then, he must ignore the accusations of meddling. After all, Ahmadinejad asked for the meeting. How can he complain? He will, but it will come accross far less weighty a criticism when Obama calls for the high ground internationally in terms of nuclear concerns and democratically with regard to the legitimate basis of government. In sum, he will need to bite the bullet of meddling, but from the high ground that will leave him consistent in being open to talks without pre-conditions and morally virtuous in advancing a peaceful and democratic message.

"You Try It" - On Simplifying the Tax Code

2009-06-16T20:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight I spoke with my father-in-law, Paul, about taxes. We were talking about Annie's and my questions for an accountant about the caregivers we have for Helen. There are at least three categories. One considers people employees, in which case you have to file all sorts of paperwork. Another treats workers as independent contractors, in which case you often have to file a 1099 form. In a third case, people who help you out can be independent contractors who do not require 1099's. Then there is the matter of whether you paid the person less than 1,500 dollars in a year, because if so, you generally do not have to file anything, etc.

We were lucky to figure out that miraculously we've been doing things right, but by accident. You would think that this is a fairly simple matter. I do not pretend that an individual cannot figure it out on his or her own. At the same time, there are some complicated scenarios in which even sophisticated books and tax software ends an answer with: "Hire a tax accountant."

Paul's suggestion is that Congress ought to pass a law requiring that all congresspersons do their own taxes. That way, they would be forced to deal with the system that you and I use and worry about. If they were to do that, he contends, the code might finally get simplified. He's probably right.

I think the problem is that there are so many incredibly different ways one can earn money. Given that, and given the complicated and varied reasons that inspire laws, I'm not sure how to avoid the way things are. One would think that the kinds of software "wizards" that help you install programs and that guide you through H & R Block or other companies' tax software could be designed for the IRS. Surely this would be a huge operation. Then again, so is any large conversion, such as the change over from analog television to digital. Of course the latter is smaller, but we frequently plan large transitions. If we can buy stamps online, pay custom postage and pay our taxes online, why not figure out what we owe online too?

The main pushback I see to this suggestion is from the companies that have designed tax software. Even they can't solve one of Paul's tax questions, though. The main argument that I can see for private software companies for taxes is that it is in their interest to entice you with a product that truly maximizes your deductions/minimizes your tax requirements. The skeptic would suggest reasonably that the government might not be as dedicated to minimizing your tax burden. Well, at least we might envision an answer system for complicated tax questions that rivals Microsoft's KnowledgeBase Web site, for instance. These are just initial ideas that my conversation with Paul inspired.

Priceless Advice and a Book Idea

2009-06-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

I am working on a book idea in which I would collect the good advice I have sought, received, and put to work for me in graduate school. One particular goldden nugget has been useful for me today and most every other day that I work on revisions of my work.

When I was thinking about moving forward with a career as a philosopher, John Lachs said to me that "if you are willing to take criticism, you can go very far."

In a Gallup poll from March of 2001, Americans were asked about what they fear. The second most frequently cited terror was public speaking. Why are we so afraid of speaking? My theory is that we are afraid of criticism. Put another way, we don't want to be laughed at or to look stupid.

The thread here is that so often people do not put their ideas out there for fear that either they might be wrong, they might be laughed at, or they might otherwise be criticized. As an academic, it is vital to overcome that fear. How can we propose ideas, test theories, or advocate what is right if we are afraid of being wrong?

It may sound trite, but the shift that people need to make is away from feeling victimized by criticism to being helped. I'll admit that on a gut level, criticism rarely feels good. Some strange people seek it out because they come to enjoy being the outsider, the rebel. At the same time and in a similar way, scholars can learn to enjoy and seek out criticism. The reason is simple. We divorce criticism of our ideas from criticism of ourselves. In trying to solve problems and argue points of view, we propose a way of thinking, submit it for peer review, and then get challenging feedback from scholars who point out the greatest difficulties in our arguments. Although it sounds like an adversarial process (and yes, sometimes people can be jerks), almost always in my experience feedback has included an assessment of the value of the contribution. If I want my work to be better and as strong as it can be, I must want that feedback.

I write this to put one piece of a book idea out there, but also to remind myself of the value and honor it is to get excellent, challenging feedback on my work. It helps me to take a deep breath and think about this advice as I dive into a project once again. If you've got great advice about scholarship or taking or giving criticism, post a comment.

Bonds vs. Taxes - on Reps and Dems

2009-06-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

A regular question that comes up whenever the public has to pay for something is this: "HOW are we going to pay for it?" Democrats are often criticized as people who raise taxes, when clearly members of both parties do that. Republicans are known for wanting to cut taxes, but state governments on many occasions have had to shut down because of insufficient funds - an embarrassment and a crisis in some cases. One approach that some like is to issue bonds. There are several reasons it's a good idea to do that.

If I've got things right, a bond is basically a loan that the government takes out in order to pay for something. The bond buyer invests in bonds as a very secure, though low-return, virtually sure thing. If things go perfectly, the government can essentially take out a loan, invest in something helpful for society, and as property values increase, the tax base increases, and without raising anyone's taxes, revenues rise. As such, in time, the government has more money to spend and can therefore pay off those bonds slowly and with a little interest. Sounds fantastic.

Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi issued $3.5 billion in bonds in 2007 for, among other things, education (Sigo, S. "Mississippi: Gov. OKs $3.5B for Schools," The Bond Buyer, SourceMedia, April 26, 2007, p. 360). There is little doubt that a great deal must be done in Mississippi to improve the system of education and to help pull people out of poverty.

Here is the trouble with issuance of bonds. Like any investment, it has its own risks. In the scenario I described, property values go up, as do incomes, or whatever way it can happen, the income that the government takes in must increase. For, how else can we pay off not only the cost of the principal of the loan without raising taxes, let alone the greater cost of also covering the interest on the bonds? The big problem arises when we take a bad bet. What if property values one day stop going up - as has happened? What if incomes decrease and people lose their jobs - which has happened? What happens then is that the government must pay off the principal of the bonds plus interest at the contracted rate, but with decreasing state revenues. This is the problem with government debt, but not just for bonds. It is also the problem for debt generally.

I am not criticizing Barbour here. We've got to get the money from somewhere. At the same time, some people, such as Barbour, are criticizing the federal government these days for taking out loans and leaving our grandchildren with debt. This may be something to criticize, but clearly in the case of education in Mississippi, this was not criticized in the same way. In the end, either the economy will have to get dramatically better quickly, or we will have to raise taxes.

There is an alternative, of course. We can cut government spending. The trouble is where to do it. If there are obvious places to cut, we can save ourselves lots of money. So many of our expenditures were hard to establish, but were put in place because of a clear need. That may not be true in a few cases, but in so many, it can be incredibly difficult to cut spending. Consider, for instance, the desire to cut pork-barrel spending, a mantra in the election. In my home state of Mississippi, Senator Thad Cochran was right to point out building after building bearing his name that would not exist were it not for the federal government's help. "Pet" projects, as they are called, are negotiating tools to get one person to vote your way because you will fund a much needed expense in his or her district. Now, surely some can be criticized, maybe even many cut or avoided. The point here is only to say that these things are not so simple.

Government should be as efficient as it can be, but the flash of criticisms against government loans or raising taxes are often too simply stated. The claim that lower taxes spark greater business success should imply that New York and California are poor states, given their high taxes, and that Mississippi is thriving and wealthy, given its very low taxes. This simply is not the case. We must invest in ourselves. Even though Barbour's bet on the bonds went sour, it was not his fault, and Mississippi is worth an investment. In the end, Democrats and Republicans are not so different as they make themselves out to be on taxes.

These are initial thoughts on taxes, bonds, and government spending. If you've got comments or suggestions for thinking about these matters, post them. Of particular interest to me are places that have tried out and succeeded with great public/private partnerships to grow their communities. One great example is Auburn, AL, which turned around its economy after a manufacturing plant closed, cutting thousands of jobs at once in a small town. You can find a little info about them and their plan here.

Karl Rove, Collected yet Fallacious

2009-06-05T07:40:00.000-07:00

In today's Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove has an opinion piece that is some of the most calm toned criticism of Democrats that has been leveled in the last few weeks. Rove came back to what Republicans are often best at, critiquing Democrats' economic policies.

At the same time, Rove is using his calm tone to mask a cheap and immoral fallacy. I commented recently on a New York Times article that gave Obama a hard time (pretty poorly) for straw man fallacies.

A straw man fallacy occurs when a person argues against someone else's position by making a fake version of the person to beat up. The dumber you make the straw man look, the more obviously right you seem. What's nice about making straw men is the freedom you have in recasting the other person's point of view in as terrible terms as you like. At the same time, it should be clear that straw man fallacies are to be avoided, as they are deceptive and thus immoral, politically speaking. It happens, certainly, that people simply make a mistake in interpreting others. In this case, however, I am confident that Rove knew exactly what he was doing. He was aiming to deceive.

In the article, Rove asks "How was Mr. Obama magically able to conjure this loss of 1.9 million jobs into an increase of 150,000 jobs?" He refers to the fact that month after month in this economic crisis, Americans have been losing jobs. Of course he is right up to that point. Then, the government passed stimulus measures. After that, Obama spoke publicly about the benefits he saw of having passed the stimulus bill. In the use of those funds, certain people have been able to keep their jobs, and others have been hired to do work. So, when Obama says that money is getting spent and that some are benefiting, he touts that as a step at least for those people.

Now, Rove could have asked whether we should be celebrating small success. After all, the numbers that Obama has reported were 150,000 people being employed. In the worst of the recent individual months, over 500,000 Americans have lost their jobs. So, in total, 150,000 may not seem like a great deal.

You might think that Rove is against the stimulus when you hear this sort of criticism. As a matter of fact, he argues that it isn't getting spent fast enough. That seems to challenge the idea of being against stimulus spending. The bigger worry about Rove's tactic, the straw man fallacy, is that he moves next to presume a falsehood. His implication is that Obama thinks that the growth that has come from the stimulus is to be considered net growth overall for the country. That is simply false. Unless Rove can furnish the language in which Obama claims that the net loss of jobs has moved from negative to positive numbers, he is guilty of promulgating a deceptive falsehood.

Look, consider an analogy. If crime is increasing in an area with no police officers, when you hire a few police officers, they will catch some criminals, an increase in criminals caught. At the same time, the slope of crime could continue to increase for independent reasons. Will you blame the hiring of police officers for it? Of course not, unless they are somehow participating in the crime. So, should we not celebrate that police are starting to catch criminals? Maybe more should be done, more should be hired. The point is that the net value of safety will still be in the negative. It is important to make the case for the success of police officers, however, when they are catching criminals. Rove seems to imply that Obama has decided there is no more crime. That is simply disingenuous and should be unacceptable in a major newspaper like the WSJ.

Karl Rove is guilty of a misleading straw man fallacy that he knew better than to commit. He should justify his remarks or withdraw them.

On the Slaying of Dr. Tiller

2009-06-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

On May 31st of 2009, Dr. Tiller was murdered in his church (see Washington Post article).

Tonight, I heard news commentators call the murder of Dr. Tiller an act of terrorism. For an example, see U.S. News and World Report's Bonnie Erbe's article here. Commentators explain that the murder was an act of violence whose intention was to strike fear in the populace and to effect a change with regard to a political matter through that fear and violence. The attack was part of a pattern of such activities, given that other abortion doctors have been murdered and many healthcare workers have been injured and harassed in the last few years going to and from work and even at their homes.

Others respond to the murder with the belief that Dr. Tiller "Reaped what he sowed," a point of view you can read more about here in a Washington Post article. If one thinks that abortions are murder sanctioned by law, one might say that the one murder prevents the murder of many others.

There is a substantial difference, however, even if one takes this harsh point of view. Surely laws have been unjust in the past, and as Dr. Martin Luther King has said, repeating the idea of other philosophers before him, an unjust law is no law. Consider at least this difference, whatever your beliefs are. While a baby is thought by some to be a person with a soul to be protected, there is a great deal of controversy about this belief. Also, it is not a simple matter of empirical fact. If we could just look with our eyes at a video tape, we can often end controversy over whether a ball is in or out on the tennis court. In the case of when it is we deem a human body to be a person independent and worthy of protection from harm, however, different people look at the same things and do not arrive at consensus. On the other hand, when people look at Dr. Tiller, there was no controversy at all. He was universally understood as a person endowed with the rights of a citizen, whether or not people think he has done wrong. As such, what I am trying to focus on here is a distinction that the philosopher Aristotle made over two thousand years ago. The distinction is between the actual and the possible.

If you buy a tree from me, and I bring you acorns, you can surely get a tree one day. At the same time, you will legitimately have a complaint to raise against me, given that I promised you a tree, and an acorn could in fact not survive the process of becoming a tree, would need to be planted, tended, and so on.

What makes late-term abortions like those that Dr. Tiller performed more controversial for people was the fact that in late term pregnancies, babies are at the point at which they could survive on their own. In such cases, the actual and the possible are far less distinguished. We would be dealing more with a sapling than an acorn. At the same time, when my students write their papers arguing against late term abortions, they invariably talk about the procedures, ignoring the motivations people have for getting abortions in the third term. The rule established in Roe v. Wade explains that third term abortions are not allowed unless the health of the mother is at risk. So, if one seeks a late term abortion, it can only be legal to perform the procedure if the health of the mother is seriously at risk. In such cases, then, we are dealing with two lives. The immediate idea that the baby should be prioritized over the mother is not self-evident. In fact, a child could be devastated to learn that against his or her mother's wishes, Mom was forced to deliver her child into a life without Mom.

Dr. Tiller performed his procedures legally within these bounds. He was a person and a citizen. His murder was motivated without direct harm to the murderer, entailed political consequences as well as consequences for the availability of healthcare options for women, and it struck fear in doctors and healthcare workers everywhere. The claim that the murder was terrorism appears justified. At the same time, some still think that this murder was the right thing to do (again, Washington Post article).

It is hard for me to imagine that Jesus would call people to murder others. Certainly there are non-Christian opponents to abortion. What worries me most at this point is how little repudiation I have seen of the murder, an act that no one can call anything but murder, and that can reasonably be labeled American terrorism. This scares me.

One last matter: on the relation between pro-life activism and the Republican party. There are many Republicans I know who are not pro-life. Also, there are many Republicans who oppose Roe v. Wade mainly because they would rather see individual states decide the matter locally. These positions are quite different from the Sarah Palin point of view - wanting a constitutional ban on abortion. I suspect that the number of people who hold that position is in fact far fewer than people suspect. The news media has said often that America is a center-right nation, whatever that means. At the same time, people like Colin Powell and John McCain do not agree with Palin's view, and are far more moderate. I suspect that the Republican party will either split or will suffer further from identity problems as this social issue continues to separate the moderate from the very conservative base of the party. At the same time, why do we feel so wedded to two parties, aside of course for the desire to have greater numbers and strength? After all, the Democrats are usually extremely divided internally as well.

Dr. Tiller's services angered many people. At the same time, if a couple had to choose between the mother and her child whose birth could kill her, I cannot imagine them making a decision in a manner that would be anything other than serious, painful, yet thoughtful. As Ben Franklin advocated in his list of thirteen virtues, we ought imitate the humility of Jesus and Socrates. On the other hand, the murder of Dr. Tiller points to the dangers of extremism the scope of which is not often this clear. Now more than ever we must talk about these extremes and demand of our leaders, secular, religious, liberals, and conservatives, to denounce this violence and its afront against our democracy.

On Sotomayor and Her Statements Currently Criticized

2009-05-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

On CNN.com, Ed Rollins has today argued that the GOP should not put up a fight about Sotomayor, Obama's first Supreme Court pick.

On Facebook, I posted the following quick response:

"It's amazing when people criticize Sotomayor as an 'elitist' pick. What do you want, a SC justice you'd have a beer with? Sotomayor came from a humble background, which makes her success all the more impressive. Good for Rollins for seeing that this is a silly fight, whether or not Sotomayor said something that could be interpreted unflatteringly in one speech. I think I need to write a blog post about this, lol."

Here's the deal. Sotomayor said in a speech that a "wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

CNN ran a story about Rush Limbaugh's attack, calling Sotomayor a racist. In the story, if you look only at the surface of things, you might wonder why a latina woman would necessarily make better decisions than a white male. According to CNN, "White House press secretary Robert Gibbs defended Sotomayor's Berkeley comments Tuesday. 'If you look at the context of the longer speech that she makes, I think what she says is very much common sense in terms of different experiences, different people,' he said." So, let's look at the context.

Here is the speech, which the NY Times has reprinted.

Here is the paragraph that has sparked so much controversy:

"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Two things seem important to note in reacting to the incredible attacks on Sotomayor of racism. First and most important is the fact that she does not say that a latina woman would in fact make better judgments than a white male, but rather that she would hope so. It is not clear why we should not hope that they would make equally good decisions, but the point is that we can interpret her as pronouncing an aspiration. In the past, as she points out in the speech, even justices whom history reveres, such as O.W. Holmes, have upheld discriminatory practices and rules. To say that she would hope, given her experience that a latina woman would do better than this sounds far more reasonable. In my eyes, this context effectively disarms the challenge against her of racism.

The second issue is this: when we consider juries in court room cases, we want the people who decide about our situations to be made up of our peers. The idea is that someone who is not like me in circumstance may have a harder time understanding why I made the decisions or requests that I have. It is not necessarily the case that someone cannot empathize from a different view point or experience, but it is reasonable to hope or to expect, I think, that someone with a similar background to mine would be more equipped to understand my concerns and reasoning. As such, to have greater diversity on the Supreme Court in a diverse nation is perfectly reasonable to value and is in this sense anything but racist.

Ed Rollins is absolutely right in this case, I think, that people like Gingrich and Limbaugh are making a mistake in fighting Sotomayor. Unless the GOP starts to look like it is led by less off-the-handle leaders, it is going to increase its troubles in 2010.

Fiscal Responsibility paper

2009-05-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

To keep myself focused, I'll occasionally post info about what I'm researching and writing. Today, I will be focused on editing a paper I have written on "Fiscal Responsibility and the 'Use It or Lose It' Rationale for Spending." I got some great feedback on the paper from Professor Alastair Norcross of UC Boulder, who commented on the paper at the Midsouth Philosophy Conference this spring. The audience at the paper was large, which was nice, and gave me great feedback as well.

The paper is basically about what happens when a fiscal leader finds himself or herself with more cash than was planned previously, such as when a non-profit gets the luncheon catering donated at the last minute. Now an organization has money beyond what it had originally planned to use, an experience I have encountered, and certain decisions bring with them moral criticism of irresponsibility when the "use it or lose it" rationale is brought up. In this paper, I set up some guidelines for deciding when the "use it or lose it" reasoning is unacceptable, acceptable, or morally better than not using the funds.

Fun stuff :)

On Strawman Fallacies and Public Leadership

2009-05-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

In a recent New York Times article, Helene Cooper criticizes President Obama for committing straw man fallacies. She explains that critics complained about the same thing regarding President Bush. The example she gives with regard to President Bush is a clear straw man fallacy. The ones she points out for President Obama, though, are about things I have heard people say.

In this post, I'm not interested in comparing possible straw man fallacies. Rather, I want to suggest that omitting the name of the person whose argument you are answering can often be a good thing. When there are people who are clear ideological opponents, it can sometimes make sense to name them. At the same time, when you are trying to work with people, to sway them to join your projects, it might be best not to point the finger at them for having raised an objection. That is clearly different from extending an argument beyond the reasonable version of your critics' challenges (as in the case of needing to "inform" people that you can't negotiate with terrorists).

My point is that in addressing people diplomatically, one can try to separate criticism of ideas from criticism of people. Think of working in a team. When someone offers an idea that is no good, to say the person was stupid is not only too strong (as everyone has some bad ideas), but it also discourages that team member from contributing in the future. In general, teamwork does best when contributions are encouraged, rather than discouraged. In that sense, then, to say "those who" is not necessarily a precursor to a straw man. It may just be that the speaker is reluctant to point the finger. We often want to challenge an idea, not the author, and with good reason.

Reason to be proud of Mississippi

2009-05-22T11:18:00.000-07:00

Changes like this one make me proud of Mississippi. Philadelphia, MS, elected its first black mayor. It is the town notorious for the killings of three civil rights activists.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/05/22/lavandera.black.mayor.cnn

Torture and killing

2009-05-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, since I've announced that I've got a blog up now, I feel compelled to post something interesting.

Lately a matter has been on my mind with regard to torture. For some reason, killing in the battlefield does not feel as wrong to me as torturing a prisoner who is in our custody. Some might find that odd. I don't think my intuition is wrong, though. An armed soldier on the ground poses a certain threat to our soldiers. An imprisoned person may have information that would be helpful to obtain, but qua prisoner, he or she is not immediately putting our soldiers in danger. Plus, we would not want others to torture our soldiers, so we sign treaties and agreements to say that we will not perform such actions. When we contradict those treaties, are we not hypocritical? Isn't America a place that should always strive for the moral high ground? Surely we falter, but if our goals are less than moral, our actions can only follow the lowering of our standards. These are only initial thoughts.

First Post - I'm blogging!

2009-05-21T11:19:00.001-07:00

Hello world,

This is Eric Thomas Weber's first blogging entry, unless you count all that stuff I post on Facebook. I'll be posting about exciting news stories, scholarly works in progress, and other musings. If I post things of interest to people, great!
Thanks for visiting.
Best,

ETW