The Gods of the Copybook Headings

 Ludwig von Mises once said, "Rulers do not like to admit that their power is restricted by any laws other than those of physics and biology. They never ascribe their failures and frustrations to the violation of economic law."  My entire series, "Supply, Demand, and Price" is a catalog of sad examples of our rulers creating failures and tragedies by ignoring the laws of economics.

Unfortunately, these days our rulers are no longer content with pretending that only the laws of economics are subject to their control and revision.  They are trying to make the laws of biology subject to their will, as well.  And, like ignoring laws of physics and economics, this leads to tragedy and disaster.

Copybooks were the manuals used to teach children writing.  Back when Kipling wrote the poem referenced in my title, the exercises were basic moral doctrines.  

Policy Review: A vs. E:

 Let us consider an imaginary university system, the Generic State University System.  Their board of regents is trying to decide between two policies for admitting students to degree programs whose graduates typically become wealthy professionals such as (but not limited to) engineers, scientists, lawyers, accountants, and the like.  Their foremost goal is to increase black participation in these professions, where they are underrepresented.

Policy A will result in a mean of 60 out of every 100 black applicants to these college programs being admitted, and about 16 of those sixty graduating and joining these well-paid professions.

Policy E will result in a mean of 30 out of every 100 black applicants being admitted, and about 24 of those 30 graduating and joining these well-paid professions.

Now, which of these policies is better for the black community?  I would argue that Policy E is better for the black community, because it results in 50% more blacks entering these well paid professions where they are currently underrepresented.

Which policy is better for everyone else?  That's also Policy E.  The number of available slots for admission to the GSU system is limited.  With Policy A, more freshmen in the GSU system will never graduate.  Those freshman slots are wasted when the students who filled them drop out.  They represent people of all other races who could have entered those professions and provided services to the rest of society, who now are stuck in lower-paid, less valuable work.  With Policy E, fewer slots are taken up by people who won't graduate, instead of more.  And with policy E, there are more highly qualified professionals providing valuable services to the community, both among blacks and among everyone else.

Policy A is affirmative action.  Basically, the rule is that a black student doesn't have to be as good as others to be ADMITTED to a university, but still has to be as good to graduate.  Blacks who would have a very good chance of graduating from (e.g.) University of California at Irvine or UC Santa Cruz, because they're smarter than 80% of the general population, and going on to a successful career, instead would be admitted to (e.g.) UC Berkeley or UCLA, which are geared to challenge students smarter than 99% of the population, where most people only(!) in the 80th percentile would fail, regardless of race.

In 1996, Californians passed an amendment to their state constitution, forbidding use of race in choosing how to fill any sort of government opportunity, including college and university admissions.  

That resulted in Policy E, or Equal Opportunity at the University of California system, in which people get opportunities based on how well they perform against a set of objective criteria, like SAT and ACT scores, high school grades and transcripts, and extracurricular load.  This is also what happens in sports, where the NFL, NBA, and MLB, not to mention track and field, all see blacks outperforming whites, and they do so according to objective criteria.

Four years after this amendment was passed, when the blacks who entered the UC system under this policy first started graduating, the number of black graduates increased by 55%, and they graduated with higher grades and in more challenging fields than under affirmative action.  

Unfortunately for the blacks and everyone else who benefited from equal opportunity, the California state legislature is trying to get the equal opportunity amendment to the California state constitution repealed.

Don't do it, California!

May God bless Mark Shea, who appears to have a beam in his eye. 

He starts with a quote from C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity:

"Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils."

Mark does so because his Usual Suspects are leaping all over Papa Francis, wailing and gnashing their teeth, and howling allegations of heresy, for things like his pious exhortation to stay close to one's guardian angel, perhaps by giving it a name (there is actually an instruction not to use names for angels, unless it's already mentioned in scripture; I reckon God has already given each angel a name of its own, and it is not important for you to know), his denigration of small-t traditions, and his use of a ferula-style crucifix.  Mark points out (rightly) that it's tendentious, and that the Christian thing to do is to love the Pope, and to interpret his actions in an empathetic and charitable manner.  He decries the drip, drip, drip of venom and hatred that these wrathful people actually enjoy pouring out on the Pope, and again, he is right to do so.  Nor is this the first time Mark has exhorted his foes to pray for their enemies, especially people he likes or feels sorry for; he once did the same for Lady Gaga.    But as I pointed out then, he typically ONLY does this for his allies.  When it comes to his enemies, he says this:

"[Their] goal is to destroy him [Papa Francis] and to remake the Church in the image and likeness of Christianist culture war Pharisees certain of their own righteousness.  They want that smaller, purer Church.  And by smaller, they mean not only “purged of all those we hate” but “purged of any teaching not in keeping with ideas solely convenient to the needs of the Party of Trump, the magisterium of FOX, and dogmas of Good White Christianists.  The goal is to whittle piety down to the Extraordinary Form, Purge the Gays and Liberals, and Magic Abortion Away.  Racism, misogyny, the worship of Mammon and Power, Pornocracy for rich white men, cheating workers of their just wages, death for all those whom the Party of Trump wants to kill, destruction of evangelism for all those the Pure wish to expel or block from access to grace, caging of brown children, nativism, enrichment of the rich at the cost of impoverishment of the destitute: these are the real goals of the Perfecti.  And they will hide behind the unborn and victims of sexual abuse to achieve those goals."

The vitriol, hatred, condemnation, and venom are palpable.  I cannot help but fear that Mark is determined to think his enemies are as bad as possible.  May God grace him with love for his enemies greater than any martyr of the Church.

P.S.:  Mark also recently wrote a piece on Pope St. Paul VI.  I recommend it highly; it is a great piece.

Minimum Wage Hikes Are Not Pro-Life

May God bless Mark Shea, who thinks he is helping.

Mark is calling for a $15/hr minimum wage.  He has done so many times before, and he's likely to do so many times again, no matter what havoc it wreaks upon the poor, or how much it entrenches us in our poverty.  He still believes it will help.

And a higher minimum wage does help, but not who he thinks, and probably not as much as it harms even them.  As I explained in an earlier post, it helps union workers, especially among unionized government employees, members of unions like the SEIU and AFSCME.  Their contracts specify wages not as $X/hr, but as $(minimum wage)+Y/hr.  Increasing the minimum wage to $15 will give all such employees a $7.75/hr raise that they don't have to negotiate for, and that all other government budgets must be built around.

The first victims of minimum wage hikes are people who have a hard time making money for their employers even when paid only minimum wage.  Redpanels has illustrated this:

What happens to those jobs?  Typically, they are either automated or turned over to the customer.  Why do you have to pay to use the air compressor to fill your tires?  Why do you think nobody pumps your gas, washes your windshield, and checks your oil for you, like Gomer Pyle did in 1962?  Why do fast-food restaurants, 7-Eleven, and convenience stores and gas stations, one and all, have self-serve beverage fountains?  Where are all the soda jerks?

I live is a small town, with a population under 1000.  It's rural; the closest shopping outside town limits not counting gas stations is at least eight miles away.  Why do you think the McDonald's in the small town where I live bought a robot to fill sodas for the drive through?

What happened is that the minimum wage has made it unprofitable to hire people to do these jobs.  My guess is that the total cost of hiring a minimum wage employee, including minimum wage plus the employer's Social Security and Medicare taxes on wages paid plus the workman's comp and unemployment insurance premiums employers are required to pay plus the cost of keeping track of hours and computing all these things and sending the various payments where they have to go plus all other labor costs, adds up to quite a bit more than $7.25/hr, probably at least $10/hr and could be as high $12/hr.  Anyone whose labor doesn't make his employer a profit after paying all these costs does not get hired.

In fact, my own job would go underwater should the minimum wage rise to $15/hr.  And that's why I got really mad at Mr. Shea.

I work as a certified nurse aide (CNA) in a skilled nursing facility (nursing home).  My job is to help the residents with activities of daily living (ADLs) such as dressing, getting into and out of their beds and wheelchairs, moving to and from the toilet, eating, bathing, shaving, brushing their teeth and hair, taking their vital signs, helping them with other things as they need me to, and observing them for potential health issues, particularly pressure ulcers (bedsores) and other skin issues.  Almost nobody in this job gets paid $15/hr.  It's very rewarding in other ways, but it is hard work that doesn't pay well.  When I took the class to qualify for the Nurse Aide Certification Exam, the instructor told us that anyone able to read and write at a 10th grade level should be able to pass the class and the NACE.  And so it was.

The thing is, it takes about 1 CNA per nine residents to get everything done right and done well for all these residents during the daytime, and probably around 1 CNA per 15 residents at night.  You might get by with ratios of 1:12 during the day and 1:18 at night if you're willing to forgo things like oral hygiene (important for adequate eating, and preventing pneumonia and heart disease), proactive toileting, frequent bathing, incontinence rounds every two hours, and resident dignity, privacy, preferences, and safety.

When the minimum wage rises, every employer who pays less than the new minimum has to do one of three things:  increase revenue, increase productivity, or cut hours. Otherwise, they go under.  What this means for the nursing home administrator with about 90 residents is that if he's going to keep the same staffing level, he very likely will also have to come up with an extra $3900/yr in revenue for each resident, JUST for the increase in minimum wage, JUST for CNAs -- we aren't adding in rest of the labor costs for keeping those CNAs yet, let alone the suddenly-increased costs for staffing the dietary, housekeeping, maintenance, and laundry departments yet.

Most nursing home resident care is paid for by Medicare and Medicaid.  They are not going to kick out the extra $5000+ per resident per year.  Remember, hiring and keeping employees just got a LOT more expensive, perhaps nearly twice as much.  When prices go up, it puts downward pressure on purchases, so hiring and employment will go down.  Because Medicare's single largest source of revenue is payroll taxes, the giant jump in unemployment is likely to prevent Medicare from getting any sort of increase in revenue; rather, revenue will likely decrease.  So too will reimbursement.  And that means fewer CNAs to help residents live healthy lives.  Rather, we can expect that one result of an increase of the minimum wage to $15/hr is that nursing home residents will face a lot more neglect, and for many, homelessness as their facilities are driven under by a misplaced desire to be generous with other peoples' money.

May the Infinitely Merciful protect my residents from that.

You know, you could do worse

So we have the bad, instead of the worse.  That is only a bit of a relief.  In truth, I really have no idea how Mr. Trump is going to govern.  His current overview/summary is at www.greatagain.gov is largely heartening, and it deserves its own post.  He may actually deeply love America with an agape love, as he has said many times over the years.  But given his failures of Christian charity that the Clinton campaign was so at pains to show us, and his lack of Christian humility, this is not a man who deserves our unqualified support.  His actual policies will bear close scrutiny, and I expect a number of them will merit fierce opposition.

While it's possible that his governance will be even worse than what we could have reasonably expected from Mrs. Clinton, I regard that as unlikely, just because her predecessor set the bar so low, and every indication suggests that she would have been Progressively worse.

If there's anything I really hope the Clinton supporters take away from this election, it would be that they notice and remember how wildly the mainstream network news shows and mainstream news networks lied to promote their candidate and demonize her opponent, and how hard the social network sites like Google, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and Twitter worked to suppress the voices of Trump supporters and interfere with their ability to collaborate.  They are nothing like objective, fair, or balanced.  They are in the tank for their side, and they are more than willing to resort to propaganda and lies, because they have no standards.

If there's anything I hope that Republicans take away from this, it is that they have to go a lot further from the Democrat party's platform than they have been of late (for that matter, since I've been old enough to vote).  Trump did a LOT better with traditionally Democrat voters like Blacks, Hispanics, and the poor than Mitt Romney did (see this video), and probably better than any of the others he faced in the Republican primaries would have.  He didn't win majorities of any of these groups, but well enough that they swung a lot of battlefield states to Republican red instead of Democrat blue.  This ability to appeal to groups that are regarded as solidly Democrat is something he shared with Ronald Reagan.

I am not particularly surprised that Mr. Trump went after the Deplorable vote, in addition to the Pro-Life vote.  We will see which group(s) he decides to throw under the bus.  While we Pro-Lifers are probably on the short list, Trump's sudden abandonment of his "Prosecute Crooked Hillary" rhetoric suggests that the Hillary Derangement Syndrome Voters are already there, and so too, perhaps, the Deplorables.

The very funniest thing I've seen, and it made me laugh out loud, was an item on David Warren's antiblogue:  "I will hope he [Trump] is sufficiently Machiavellian to nominate Ted Cruz for the Scalia vacancy on the Supreme Court."

Oh, what a BRILLIANT maneuver that would be!  Cruz is an actual constitutional scholar, a man who has a collegial relationship with the rest of the Senate, the man to present the largest number of oral arguments to the SCOTUS, and it takes him out of the running for President in all future elections!!

Should the strong kill the weak?

I've discussed this issue before. 

The foremost issue in every election is this: should the strong kill the weak?

I say, NO. I say that our government should always prohibit the strong from killing the weak. If the government fails to protect the lives of ANYONE within its jurisdiction, it has failed us all. It has diminished our humanity. If the government draws a line to separate one group, which can be killed legally, from the rest, then be assured that the government can move that line at any time, to include any other group in the list of who can be killed, for any reason or no reason at all.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they are brawnier than their victims, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they are angrier than their victims, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they have better weapons than their victims, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they outnumber their victims, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they have more money than their victims, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they have more votes than their victims, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are of the preferred race and their victims are not, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are given legal privileges that their victims are not, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they are healthy and their victims are not, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they are legally competent and their victims are not, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they are photogenic and their victims are not, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they have no genetic or developmental abnormalities and their victims do, the strong should not kill the weak.

It doesn't matter if the killers are strong because they have been born and their victims have not, the strong should not kill the weak.

Believe it or not, this is NOT a settled question at this time. In the previous century, numerous governments have adopted a variety of positions on the issue.

All governments have prohibited the strong from killing the weak in SOME cases. But that is not the full story.

Some governments have prohibited the strong from killing the weak in all cases.

Some governments have sometimes merely inhibited the strong from killing the weak.

Some governments have sometimes permitted the strong to kill the weak.

Some governments have sometimes aided the strong in killing the weak.

And some governments have actually REQUIRED the strong to kill the weak.

If you think the last ended with the fall of the Third Reich and the liberation of their death and concentration camps, you are in error.  Both Stalin and Mao demanded that their political opponents be slain; in Mao's case, by their neighbors when enforcing the One Child Policy. 

You can escape that lowest tier here in the US if you're very careful to delve deeply into the coverage provided by your healthcare insurance company, and you have enough money to opt out.  Regardless of whether your plan covers abortion, if any of the plans offered by your insurer do, you are contributing to that coverage.  And certainly if your state's Medicaid coverage includes abortion, then your state government is helping the strong kill the weak.  This is why local elections areas or more important than national elections.

And when you vote, remember that the most important issue is whether your governments will prevent the strong from killing the weak.

Citizen vs. Subject

One of the reasons that gun controllers tend to wind up on the left is that they think that the masses should be subjects. They won't say it that way, but time and again, you'll see on the left an attitude that most problems should be handled by way of people ceding control to the government.

For example, when ordinary people can go to anyone they want for medical services, they can choose quacks or other incompetents. Thus, to protect people from quacks, the government should forbid anyone from practicing medicine until they get a license (permission) from the government.

The same principle may also apply to child care, electricians, taxi drivers, barbers, hairdressers, lawyers, plumbers, or any of as many as a hundred or more professions. Or it may be a matter of prior restraint because of the potential for endangering the public, as for truck drivers, pilots, and so forth.

And if somebody has any sort of trouble meeting basic needs, then it is incumbent upon the government to allocate resources to them. Examples include public housing, Women, Infants, and Children, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, and public schools, which have the additional benefit -- cited by the likes of John Dewey and John D. Rockefeller -- of giving the government the opportunity to mold young people like plastic.

This also applies to owning and carrying guns. The basic Leftist attitude towards gun ownership is that when ordinary people own guns, that causes problems, so they shouldn't.

Thomas Sowell would put it a bit differently, as far as the internal thinking on the Left tends to go. In his estimation, the left would tend to think that if they were in control, they could make everyone else into the sort of good people they know themselves to be. All they need to transform human nature is enough time and enough power. How much of each?

They'll let you know when they're done. Until then, the answer is "more."

BWAA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

When I saw this over on Simcha Fisher's blog, I laughed myself into a coughing fit. Enjoy!

Empowerment through Dressing Like a Harlot

John C. Wright has written on a telly show set in a Playboy club. In his examination of the show and some of the statements made by one of the actresses, he makes it very clear just what women have given up by embracing contraception and postfeminism.

I WANT This!

Just watch:

revolights. join the revolution. from revolights on Vimeo.

Source Article

Revolights on Kickstarter

Towards More Civilized Discourse

I find myself a little dismayed when I check out a blogroll and I DON'T find These Stone Walls. Father MacRae is an excellent writer, a light to the world, and a stunning example of obedience and charity while under duress. Case in point: His post entitled, Holy Hostility, Batman! He ably decries the nastiness, name-calling, spite and vituperation prevalent in a fairly large number of blog comboxes and other online communities. He makes the case that it's not enough for the blogger to refrain from such behavior; it is also incumbent upon the blog admin to prune nastiness out of their comboxes as well. In fact, this is one of the reasons I moderate comments.

(another is so that I'll have notification of some sort that a comment has actually been posted. It's not something that happens a lot around here.)

And I fully agree that one of the hallmarks of a good blog is a good community participating in the combox. But what do you think?

Advertisers Filter Your Internet

Just in case you haven't seen this yet:


Are you cool with this? If so, why? If not, why not (and what should we do)?

Maybe as this guy suggests?

EUREKA!!

One of my heroes is Dr. Stanley Williams, PhD. When his series, "Trying to Fly With One Wing" was posted at Catholic Exchange, I was enthralled. I sought it eagerly, as it seemed one of the finest bits of apologetics I had ever encountered. Eventually it disappeared from CE, and then from the entire web, as far as I could tell.

But now I have found it again! First at CatholicLane, where they are up to part 4, and then after some googling, on a blog devoted entirely to the series. I am thrilled to find it available once again, and I'm making sure it's in my sidebars.

These Stone Walls

These Stone Walls has just been added to my blogroll. It is composed on a rather flaky word-processor typewriter in a New Hampshire penitentiary by a priest who will in all likelihood remain in prison until (if) he reaches the age of 108. He will serve this sentence of 67 years because he maintains his innocence. Had he admitted guilt, he would have served no more than three years, and perhaps no more than one.

I just started reading this blog about four or five hours ago. It is absolutely RIVETING. I should have been in bed two or three hours ago. I am having a very difficult time leaving it alone. Part of this is because Fr. Gordon Macrae is demonstrating tremendous Christian charity in outrageously trying and difficult circumstances. I recommend him and his writings very highly.

Proof Of God's Grace

that people would come together to do this:



I would have LOVED to have been there for it.

Salute to Fr. Longenecker.

Twitter

I loathe Facebook. And frankly, not everything I find interesting on the Web, that I'd like to see shared, deserves a full blog post.

Hence, my Twitter feed. It may be found to violate Twitter's terms, in that it's a place I expect to post a bunch of links, and not so many "status updates."

Abortion's immorality

Abortion, for this discussion, shall mean the direct and intentional killing of a human organism prior to birth. It is permissible only under the same circumstances as any other direct and intentional killing of a human being, namely, when the one killed is a direct threat to the life or liberty of one or more other human beings.

I submit that the life cycle of any sexually reproducing organism begins at the zygote stage. Further, it is absurd to conflate a zygote with an oocyte, e.g. by calling it a "fertilized egg." Gametes do not undergo mitosis. They do not develop. They either join, male and female, to create a new and unique organism, or they die.

A zygote is a new and unique organism. The only thing that separates it from an adult is sufficient time and a suitable environment. Claiming that any subsequent stage of development separates those human organisms with human rights from those without would be assigning those rights on the basis of arbitrary criteria. As there is no excuse for denying a zygote human rights, there is no excuse for killing one.

For the Children!

It's really easy for me to discount anyone who claims that they are working "for the children!" It's a favored battle cry for people that all too often appear more interested in disassembling families, and deconstructing family structures, than of people who actually love children.

And yet, that is EXACTLY for whom Defense of Marriage Advocates are working. Read the article.

For that matter, so are those opposing Artificial Reproductive Therapy.

You aren't going to find anyone that loves children more than the Catholic Church.

I have something great to reveal!

Go here.

Salute to the Catholic Cavemen.

How To Have An Austrian School Economy

Salute to the Western Confucian. Full article at A Conservative Blog for Peace. Actual text by Bishop Williamson of the SSPX.

Excerpted are the seven commandments of Austrian School Economics:

1. Thou Must Earn.
2. Thou shalt not spend more than thou earnest.
3. No state may make too many rules.
4. No state may tax too much.
5. No state may spend its way out of a recession.
6. No state may print its way out of a recession.
7. No state may employ its way out of a recession.

Seem like very solid rules to me. I wish we had a government that would follow them.