In the Vicinity of Beijing's 4th Ring, or More Properly, What America Should be Shooting For

I think what was most disappointing was simply the quality of the questions students asked during the Q&A. The first one was “In your dealings with President Obama, what have you found to be his best quality?” And it was simply downhill from there. Now, if this man was addressing a group of third graders, that question might have been appropriate (maybe), but among a group of college students and academics it’s simply absurd. Consider the situation. Here you are, a college student (or professor, or whatever), with an opportunity to discuss anything, from the anemic job market, the depressed housing market, a rapidly nuclearizing Iran, a debt-to-GDP ratio north of 100%, or the impeding collapse of the post-World War II world order, and you essentially ask, “Why is the President soooooo awesome?” I think this little episode perfectly encapsulates what is wrong with American higher education today. Instead of thinking critically about events around it, the academy is so radically self-absorbed and out of touch and so obsessed with its own ideology, it’s simply laughable. Is this really all that the best and brightest of North Carolina is capable of? Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe some rogue from Duke snuck in, but it was kind of embarrassing.

Secretary Donovan, when he wasn’t answering inane questions from the audience, also did a fair amount of pontificating. Apparently, the administration is convinced that we can educate ourselves out of this recession. If only we spend (a lot) more on higher education and push as many people as we can through the system, we’ll all be happy again. Color me a skeptic, but the plan he described, where the federal government subsidizes education through new tax credits, etc., guarantees low-interest loans for all comers, and then requires those borrowers to make only bare minimum payments on those loans, seems awfully similar to American housing policy circa 2008 (which incidentally, HUD bears a lot of responsibility for). I suppose if the idea is to create a giant education bubble, such that when it pops, everyone forgets about the housing problem because the education bubble is so much bigger, then this is a great idea. But if the idea is to generate genuine economic growth, this is certainly not the way to go.

And what’s a State of the Union talk without some mention of trains? Aren’t those things amazing? If only we had more of them, those pesky Chinese wouldn’t even be able to touch us. Actually, the best part of the Secretary’s little speech was when he was talking about China’s impressive infrastructure and how the Chinese are just light-years ahead of us in this regard. He clearly has no idea what he’s talking about. If he did know what he was talking about, he would know that, even in the (very crowded and polluted) major cities (i.e. places like Beijing), you can’t drink the tap water or flush toilet paper because the sewer systems are so old and so out of date. He would also know that electricity is also a problem, and that you actually have to buy surge protectors to insulate your electronic goods from regular power surges. Indeed, even China’s much lauded trains aren’t much to write home about. When they’re not falling off bridges, many of China’s trains are (very) overcrowded, smelly, and generally a very hellish experience. And their highway system isn’t anywhere nearly as well developed as ours. Now, don’t get me wrong, China’s quite a charming place, but the U.S. is definitely winning the infrastructure game.

Shiny!

There was also a fair amount of green energy hype. The Secretary informed us that while there might be a few Solyndras along the way (who doesn’t mind a little government corruption after all), we can’t expect the government to make the right choice every time when it comes to deciding which business to support. This, of course, is the whole point! The government can’t make these decisions, because they are infinitely complicated and not something that some bureaucrat hiding in the basement of a federal building can make. Such choices are properly left to the market, which is a better evaluator  of risk and profit than the government will ever be. When the government tries to make these decisions, you end up with Solyndra. Solyndra isn’t merely a side effect of government intervention in the market, it is its natural conclusion.

All in all, this event was pretty disappointing. The questions were childish, and we got the same old, same old from the administration. It’s simply too bad that what could have been a really interesting event on the future direction of the country devolved into a Why Barack Obama is the Greatest Thing Since Baked Bread event.

According to Liberty University vice president of student affairs Mark Hine, “the Democratic party violates the school’s principles by supporting abortion, socialism and the “‘LGBT’ agenda,” referring to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people” and that even though the group “may not support the more radical planks of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party is still the parent organization of the club on campus.”

The group’s faculty sponsor has said that she was simply trying to allow alternative views to be heard on a campus where the Republican Party’s agenda is  “preached on every avenue.” The Liberty University College Republicans have a large presence on campus and have not been the target of any action from the administration.

Now, Liberty University is a private institution and as such they can deny recognition to whatever groups they wish. However, just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. If Liberty wants to suppress free speech and intellectual discourse on their campus, they can do that. But they are only hurting themselves.

As I wrote in an earlier post, allowing ideas to engage in free competition with each other will allow the best ideas to win out. Attempts to control the competition of ideas only make it appear that the controllers have something to hide. This only increases interest in whatever it is they are trying to suppress. It also lends less credibility to whatever ideas end up winning in Liberty’s competition of ideas. After all, a victor with no competition is no victor at all. And finally, students who are educated in an environment where only one viewpoint is presented are ill equipped to defend their views once they enter the real world.

Liberty is within its legal rights to ban the College Democrats club from campus, but by limiting the competition of ideas, Liberty is only hurting itself and its students.

When I got here, I found out that a large percentage of the student body at this university profess the Christian religion. There are a multitude of Christian religious groups with membership in the thousands. Most of my professors do not make mention of their religious or political views in class, and more than a few made positive references towards Christianity. Acts of moral depravity of all sorts were more often a product of the rumor mill, rather than something I witnessed firsthand.

It turns out, the rumor mill was what most people back home were going off of. The Sodom and Gomorrah, Bart Ehrman-will-turn-you-into-an-atheist-communist-hedonist mindset was nothing more than the prognostications of people who knew only of twisted second and third hand stories.

I’m proud to report that the University of North Carolina is in fact a place of healthy intellectualism. For every person taking a position on an issue (be it political, social or religious), there is likely to be someone to counter it. In this environment, both sides’ arguments are made better by the existence of opposition.

Rather than avoiding them, we should all listen to people who oppose our views, for the simple reason that competition breeds improvement. When our own ideas are challenged by conflicting ideas, our ideas are refined into something better. In other cases, our ideas are bad and they get tossed out.

This Darwinist competition of ideas breaks down when outside factors intervene to try and stop the competition. By and large, Carolina has been free of this. There have been some exceptions where one faction has attempted to shut down the voice of another. However, such examples as the controversy over Carolina Students for Life, SDS/YWC, or the Board of Election’s abuse of campaign laws have been the exceptions rather than the rule. By and large, the competition of ideas flows freely each day on campus. And I am thankful for that.

Now, many would say the state of morality in the United States is far below an acceptable standard. However, this has been true of every civilization throughout history. The fact is, people are less than perfect no matter where they are.  Human progress is an illusion. Hence, I am not going to single out the University as a place of exceptional immorality, because it does not appear to me that this university is any more or less moral that American society as a whole. The problem is not with this university’s administration or its student organizations, but with American society at large. America’s institutions are a reflection of its people. Any attempt to reform public morals by reforming university administration is like trying dam half a river. The current will still flow, it will just be re-directed slightly for a while and it will eventually erode the dam.

In short, our University is not an intellectual wasteland. Rather, it is a hotbead of intellectual discussion, which is exactly what a university should be. This competition of ideas can only benefit our society. If ideas are allowed to be expressed and evaluated freely, truth will come out on top. Like economic markets, this competition stops working when interlopers begin to fiddle with stuff in an attempt to engineer their own desired result. Attempts to control the competition of ideas usually backfire on whoever is attempting the controlling. People begin to wonder: What are they trying to hide? What are they afraid of?

Be they conservative Christians or anti-”hate speech” liberals, interlopers who attempt to control the competition of ideas not only produce unintended consequences, but they betray their own ideas. If they have faith in the truth of what they believe, the superiority of their ideas should be self-evident and they should not need to seek other means to ensure that their ideas are adopted.

Fortunately, although the competition of ideas is not flowing freely in many parts of the world, it is flowing much better at UNC than at most places. We have an atmosphere of exceptional intellectual vitality, and we should strive to keep it that way.

Person of the Year

Today, around lunch time, Obama will be sworn in as the 44^th president of the United States of America.  What does that mean for us college students?  The short and simple answer is: slavery. 

According to Obama’s Blueprint for Change, he will “require 100 hours of service in college.”  Per usual, Obama is short on the details.  For example, exactly what we will do (be required to do that is) is unclear.  It does say, however, that we will receive a $4,000 tax credit for our trouble; that’s 40 dollars an hour.   In other words, the person of the year is proposing to take billions of dollars from the private sector in order to redistribute it to some punk kid planting roses in a park.

For those of you with a real job, you might find the parallels between Obama’s plan and the private sector striking.  I mean, in both work is rewarded with pay.  But, in Obama’s la la, yes-we-can land there is one slight difference: society has no say in whether the college student’s “service” is efficient or necessary.  Competitive capitalism allows for WAY too much freedom under an Obama administration.  No, coercion is the way of the future.  You will serve.  Why?  Because, it’s a good thing to do, duh!  Never mind any arguments involving inalienable rights or some such western construct ; that is sooo 19^th century. 

All in all, Obama believes it is the place of the federal government to mandate “Universal Voluntary Citizen Service.”  In American, ”universal voluntary” is translated “tyranny.”  Side effects may involve anger to the point of great indignation. But, perhaps you’re willing to give this “change” a chance.  If so, when it comes your turn to “serve,” just look Obama in the eye and say, “Yes suh, massah.”