No matter what anyone says, gun control works

Another gun massacre: Now, can we finally make mass killing a little harder?

The Newtown massacre has revived the gun control issue. Whether or not the discussion leads to policy change remains in doubt. For many years, it has been almost taboo for any political leader to discuss the subject. President Obama ignored it completely in both his presidential campaigns. Congress allowed the assault weapons ban to expire. Democrats – among whom most gun control sympathizers can be found – would not risk touching the issue. No matter how many gun massacres occurred, nothing was done to make the deadliest weapons harder to get. The next deranged mass killer can, therefore, easily walk in to a gun store and come away with as many weapons of mass destruction as he wishes. That is how successful the NRA has been in scaring people into thinking any gun regulation threatens their liberty. But a gun massacre on elementary school children might just scare us back into rationality.

            

Of course, people’s fundamental freedoms were never at issue in the gun control debate. No one would, because of any American gun control law, be unable to use a gun to hunt or defend their home. The issue was whether or not certain types of weapons could be restricted because of the extraordinary danger they posed. The Brady Bill banned certain assault weapons, whose great power and speed make mass killing easier. Other laws limited the number of guns a person could buy within a certain amount of time. Other laws required safety locks on guns. A proposed law would have required background checks for guns purchased at gun shows, but the NRA made even that modest measure impossible – while attacking (mostly successfully) the other laws.

            

The NRA’s campaign against moderate gun regulations was so successful that most politicians stopped talking about the issue in the 2000s. When guns were discussed at all, the discussion concerned laws allowing people to carry guns anywhere they went. The assault weapons ban expired. The Supreme Court nullified Washington D.C.’s gun ban. Any disturbed person could (provided he had not yet committed a felony) easily get almost any weapon he wanted. The political culture, controlled by extremism, made his evil designs easy to carry out.

            

“Easy” is the key word here. There is no denying that a committed person could always find a way to kill, gun or no gun. The issue is how easily he can carry out his plans. Making it harder to get weapons doesn’t necessarily prevent a shooting. But it means less killing in the aggregate. Gun rights advocates often miss or ignore this point. They insist that banning weapons simply won’t prevent crime. People could still get weapons illegally, they say. If people couldn’t get assault weapons, they would still use handguns. Or hunting rifles. Or knives. The (implied) point is, you can’t absolutely guarantee that weapons won’t fall into the wrong hands, so don’t bother trying.

            

This is nonsense. Just because you can’t prevent all gun deaths doesn’t mean you can’t prevent some. Indeed, that is what most countries do. They restrict guns and, sure enough, have much lower rates of gun deaths than we do. If we can’t ensure the next mass killer won’t carry out his plans, we could at least make it harder for him to get weapons that enable him to kill so many people so quickly. We could at least force him to resort to a less powerful gun or a knife, which would probably result in fewer deaths than if he uses a weapon that fires six bullets per second. Granted, no law could ever make us perfectly safe. But we could at least try to make it harder to kill so many people so quickly.

            

What would we lose in doing so? What fundamental freedom would we lose in saying no to weapons that spray bullets? What possible need does a person have for such a weapon? Does he need it to hunt deer? (Didn’t people manage to hunt before these weapons existed?) If he faces an intruder in his home, does he need to riddle the man’s body with dozens of bullets? The only purpose of these high-powered assault weapons is to kill the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time. Why should we believe the Constitution prohibits us from stopping this?

            

Having dealt with one clearly fallacious objection to gun control, we can turn to the more serious concern about constitutionality. Doesn’t the Constitution establish a right to bear arms? True, some gun control advocates deny that it does so. But you don’t have to accept their position to accept gun regulations. You only have to accept that our rights come with limits. There are limits on our First Amendment freedoms: you don’t get to yell “fire” in a crowded theater, you don’t get to threaten the president’s life – I won’t bore you with the whole list. The point is, some things people may say are indeed not covered by the First Amendment. For the same reason, some weapons are not covered by the Second Amendment.

            

Sometimes an extreme example helps illustrate a point. You don’t get to buy a nuclear weapon. To my knowledge, no gun control opponent has said otherwise. But why not? Because, of course, constitutional freedom does not mean we can do anything we wish. Practically everyone understands this at some level. We exercise our rights within certain limits: limits determined by concerns such as public safety, concerns such as protecting innocent people from massacre. So yes, we can say no to some weapons and still respect the Constitution.

            

Some other fallacious anti-gun-control arguments demand rebuttal. One goes like this: “Cars kill thousands of people each year! So we should ban them too, right?” Of course not. Cars are not like assault weapons that fire six bullets per second. Cars are something we need for modern daily life. They’re a risk we have to take. Weapons that fire six bullets a second are something we don’t need, a risk we don’t have to take. We can easily live without them. We can even hunt and defend ourselves without them. So it’s erroneous to compare guns to cars in this context. We can have car safety standards, of course – although by the logic of extreme gun rights proponents, we really shouldn’t – but there are certain things we can’t do to protect public safety. Restricting the deadliest weapons is one thing we can do. 

Sometimes the heat of debate stifles the most basic elements of good argument: the propositions upon which positions are founded. We expose ourselves -- leave ourselves vulnerable -- when we admit our assumptions or suppositions, perhaps fearing ridicule or, worse, refutation. Or maybe we assume that since our beliefs are self-evident to us, our opponents must be aware of them too. Don't be so sure. In any case, it would seem easier to resort to name-calling, attacking straw men, or other ways of avoiding substantive debate. But if you're wrong, isn't it best to find out now and get it over with before you continue making an ass of yourself? Or perhaps you're making a bad argument for a good policy. Wouldn't you rather know your argument is bad? So at the risk of ridicule or refutation, I explain some of the core beliefs behind gun control. Doing so probably won’t change hardened minds on either side, but it might help people in the middle make up theirs. I'm sure these propositions can be disputed. I welcome that. So here we go:

The propositions behind gun control

1. Guns are extraordinarily dangerous. Guns, especially high-powered ones called assault weapons, make killing, especially mass killing, easier than other means of killing – easier than killing with a less powerful gun, easier than killing with a knife, easier than building a bomb.

2. Liberal (as in non-restrictive) gun laws make guns easier to obtain. True, outlawing certain weapons won’t eliminate them completely. Some people could still get them if they tried hard enough. But it’s easier to get them when they’re legal. So, yes, having less restrictive gun laws means it’s easier for a disturbed potential killer to get the deadliest kind of firearm.

3. Easy access to guns contributes to more gun deaths and more violent deaths generally. Because guns make killing easier, more guns means more killing. This shouldn’t even be a controversial proposition. But it is. So here’s the reason. Widespread availability of guns means more guns in circulation. Since guns are extraordinarily dangerous means of killing, having more of them in circulation creates more danger, more risk of killing. More risk of killing means more deaths overall.

            This does not mean a person couldn’t save his life (or others’ lives) by shooting a shooter. It can happen. It surely has happened. But that’s not enough to override the effect of more guns making killing easier and therefore more frequent. That is, having a weapon to defend yourself is no match for not having to defend yourself in the first place – because an assailant is not as well-equipped to threaten you. Having armed staff in schools – and potentially a shootout, causing collateral damage to children and adults in the building – is no match for preventing a deranged killer from having such a powerful weapon in the first place, so that there is no need for a shootout.

            Why would it be valuable to keep a shooter from having an assault weapon? He can’t kill as many people – at least, not so fast – with a less-powerful weapon such as an ordinary handgun or rifle. Nor can he do so with a knife. (It’s no coincidence that the recent stabbing in a Chinese school wounded 22 people but killed none.) The reason he can kill so many people so fast is that he has a more powerful weapon. A slower rate of killing means more time to take him down and stop more killing. More time for the police to arrive before 26 people – or many more – get killed. Or perhaps an armed guard will take him down. Fine. He’ll be able to do it before so many children are killed. (No one’s arguing that no one should be armed or that guns should never be used for protection. The point is, we should make it less likely to need protection.) If we can keep even some killers from getting such a powerful weapon, we can prevent some deaths. More deaths than we can prevent by arming the kindergarten teacher.

4. Therefore, laws should be passed to reduce the number of the deadliest guns in circulation. Doing so would mean fewer people would die violently.

Two cheers for Justice John Roberts

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act survives judicial review

John Roberts surprised many (including this writer) in voting not to nullify the Affordable Care Act, which expands access to health insurance, bars discrimination against the sick, and requires that everyone have insurance (the dreaded mandate). Instead, the chief justice sided with his more liberal colleagues in upholding the law based on respect for Congress’s power to tax. While he erred in thinking that the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce does not justify the mandate, he at least declined to overturn a law passed through the democratic process within the legislature’s constitutional powers. By upholding an act that probably contradicts his own political preferences, Justice Roberts acted in a way that was authentically conservative rather than connivingly partisan. 

Whatever you think of Obamacare, the place to decide on it is the legislature. Taxing the population to provide broader access to health care could be good policy or not, but it is a policy decision that falls within Congress’s power to levy taxes for the general welfare. Nor do the taxes have to be uniform across the population. Congress has already enacted many laws that effectively tax people for not doing something, i.e. laws that grant tax relief to people engaging in certain activities, such as ethanol production. Some of these subsidies are arguably bad policy, but the fact that they mean higher taxes on citizens who decline to engage in the subsidized activity has not moved the court to strike then down.

For the same reason, Congress is allowed to tax (or penalize, or whatever you call it) people who decline to purchase health insurance, just as it could provide tax credits for people who chose to purchase health insurance. The mandate is really a tax, which, despite the fact that the word tax has the same connotation as nuclear holocaust in our political culture, is allowed under our Constitution. Justice Roberts improved the integrity and legitimacy of the court by eschewing the predictable partisanship that has marred many of his court’s decisions. For that he deserves two cheers.    

Nanny Bloomberg?

Government should have a role in regulating processed foods

A now-widespread debate has been amplified by Mayor Bloomberg’s attempt to curb obesity by restricting the size of sweetened beverages sold by certain vendors in New York City. The policy will probably have less impact than expected both by its proponents and its critics. There are reasons to doubt that the restriction will have significant effects on obesity rates or public health. People could easily buy two small sodas instead of one large one. The law’s critics on the hard-core libertarian side can calm down: the government is not, nor will it be, prohibiting people from eating as much sugar (or fat or salt or whatever) as they desire. That said, a larger ideological question lurks beyond the particulars of Bloomberg’s policy: does the government have a legitimate role in regulating unhealthy contents in food and drink?

It is clear that food and drink manufacturers put in a ton of ingredients that, when consumed in large quantities, cause serious health problems for many people. Sugar-laden beverages are at least as much a part of the problem as growing food-portion sizes. One 12-ounce can of Coke contains the equivalent of nine teaspoons of sugar. Many people, especially kids who don’t know better, routinely consume 20-ounce bottles of soda. There is evidence that the way the body metabolizes sweetened beverages is such that people do not eat less after consuming all those extra calories. (See Dr. Robert Lustig's lecture.) This makes sweetened beverages especially obesogenic. Soda (and fruit juice – which has just as much sugar) does not fill you up. It just adds unnecessary fat to your body, contributing to diabetes and heart disease. That the government necessarily pays for much of the resulting medical care suggests it has a legitimate interest in nudging people toward less obesogenic habits.

This debate is not about whether people should be allowed to eat and drink whatever they please. Say the government limited the salt in certain processed foods. Nothing prevents people from putting more on if they really wish to. Simply buy a container of salt and sprinkle it on until your blood pressure makes you burst. The problem is that much of the hyperconsumption of such problematic ingredients occurs unwittingly. People can read labels, but do they understand the significance of those numbers as they chow down food that has been practically engineered to promote overeating? Studies have shown that people eat more when they’re given more, without realizing it. For example, by having a machine fill up a soup bowl from underneath the table, unbeknownst to the diner who proceeds to eat however much is pumped in. Does this suggest that people are making an informed, rational decision of the kind that libertarians extol? Do people really desire to be eating this much sugar, salt, and fat? That seems doubtful. They eat what tastes good. Yet what tastes good is largely a matter of habit. Serve people soda with half the current level of sugar, and after awhile they wouldn’t know the difference. Their health would be better, though.

If people could eat much less unhealthy ingredients and still enjoy their food and drink, then why hasn’t the industry voluntarily cut the levels of these ingredients? In large part, it’s about competition. Food manufacturers use tons of salt to make their foods more appetizing. Call it hyperpalatable. If one manufacturer cuts salt while others don’t, people will find the lower-salt food less appealing. If all manufacturers cut the salt (to, say, the level that people might naturally sprinkle on food they made from scratch), eventually people probably wouldn’t know the difference. Voluntary reform will not work.

To the extreme libertarians who are so incensed by any such discussion, these arguments are irrelevant or worse. It should be up to individual choice, full stop. But individual choice didn’t create this problem, and individual choice won’t solve it. The staggering quantities of unhealthy ingredients in processed foods amounts to a social problem, both because of the corporate nature of its development and the widespread effects on public health. The government could well regulate the fat, salt, and sugar in processed foods, and people could still be free to add as much as they wish, or prepare their own food, from scratch, to their liking. There is no need for this to be an either/or question. Bloomberg’s policy will probably have little effect, but his motivating premise cannot be lightly or glibly dismissed.

Declaring War on the Sign of Peace

Correction: I should not have described the Sign of Peace as one of several "inappropriate practices in Church." I simply personally dislike the Sign of Peace and find it distracting. Only the other things I mention are truly inappropriate.

(And Other Inappropriate Practices in Church)

I feel the anxiety rising within me when I hear the priest say, “Jesus took the cup and said, ‘My peace I give you.’” I know what that means. We are approaching that part of mass at which the priest will say, “Let us offer one another a sign of Christ’s peace.” The people will turn and embrace family, friends and strangers. Some will shake hands; others will exchange hugs. There is no set order for the direction in which the hand shaking, “peace be with you” saying, and/or hugging is to take place, so you may be left standing there with your hand out, waiting for someone who has no intention of receiving it. You may wonder how many hands you are expected to shake. Do you turn around for the person behind you, or do you only do so if the person taps you? How far down do you go – as far as you can reach, or do you greet only the people closest to you?

            All reasonable questions – and all questions a person should not have to be thinking about during the solemnity of mass. The problem is not simply the annoying and unnecessary ritual of the Sign of Peace. The deeper problem is the relatively casual and borderline irreverent atmosphere created by changes made to the mass in the 1960s and then exaggerated by secular cultural changes. Such changes led people to treat the church as less sacred: another place to meet and greet while fulfilling their obligation to attend mass. We are faithful people, but we are not so faithful that we will leave our worldly concerns at the door while we go to worship at the altar of Christ.

            People will enter the nave – the part of the building where the people congregate for mass – and make a perfunctory, half-hearted bow toward the altar, and proceed to socialize with the people around them. Before mass begins, a layperson will take the microphone, say, “Good morning,” and make housekeeping-type announcements. During mass, the priest may crack wise about goings-on in the material world. The people will laugh.

            I will laugh, too, but then I will remember: this is supposed to be mass. This is supposed to be a sacred place. We should be treating this place with the reverence and solemnity it deserves. This is not about certain perfunctory gestures such as bowing, genuflecting, or making the Sign of the Cross, although such practices make a nice start. This is about an attitude of reverence. The sight of the altar should humble us. It should make us silent and prayerful. The sanctuary is not a place for the priest to talk lightly about matters such as football. Even if I particularly liked the sport, I would consider mention of it during mass inappropriate.

            I understand that housekeeping-type announcements have to be made. Must they be made in the sanctuary, though? I understand that the priest may share with the people a passion for football. Must the game be mentioned during the homily, though? I understand that people wish to socialize with friends they may seldom get to see. Must they do so in the nave, though? I understand that shaking hands and wishing people well is a nice and polite act. Must it be done during the mass, though? Mass is a time to worship and pray. Mass is a time for interaction between the people and God. There is plenty of time elsewhere for interaction between the people and one another.  

            I could say plenty of good about today’s Church. Recent changes to the mass have made the language more faithful to the Latin, the official language of the Church. Pope Benedict has allowed any parish to follow the Tridentine Latin Mass, the mass practiced in every Catholic church prior to the Second Vatican Council. Conscientious priests will remind people about the importance of relative quiet and solemnity in the church as well as rituals such as bowing and genuflection. At yesterday’s mass, my parish priest took care to correct the people nicely when they said the old (sometimes very loosely translated) responses instead of the new (more literal) ones. He devoted much attention in his newsletter to proper church behavior, including matters such as the bow that is to be taken during a certain part of the Creed recitation (something that tends to be ignored and can leave a scrupulous person somewhat embarrassed when he actually does it).

            The point bears repeating: this is not about going through the motions, although some would only do so. This is about taking a special, reverent attitude in church. We indicate such an attitude through how we speak, act, and yes, dress, when we enter this most solemn of places. Intrusions such as the Sign of Peace we could well do without, and I regret that the authorities of the Church did not make such a change along with the welcome changes in language.   

Responding to Charles Krauthammer's cheap and insulting op-ed

Read the op-ed piece here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-scapegoat-strategy/2011/10/13/gIQArNWViL_story.html

Relevant excerpt:

“Exhibit C. To the villainy-of-the-rich theme emanating from Washington, a child is born: Occupy Wall Street. Starbucks-sipping, Levi’s-clad, iPhone-clutching protesters denounce corporate America even as they weep for Steve Jobs, corporate titan, billionaire eight times over.

“These indignant indolents saddled with their $50,000 student loans and English degrees have decided that their lack of gainful employment is rooted in the malice of the millionaires on whose homes they are now marching — to the applause of Democrats suffering acute Tea Party envy and now salivating at the energy these big-government anarchists will presumably give their cause.”

Krauthammer implies that people who protest corporations are hypocritical if they use these corporations’ products. It is possible, however, to be against corporate influence in politics and still appreciate the value of the corporations’ products. To criticize a corporation’s practices is not to consider the entity inherently evil. The problem is not that big corporations exist but that they exercise so much power with so little accountability, while ordinary people without so much money struggle to have their voices heard.

As for “indignant indolents,” Krauthammer is surely correct that the protestors are quite angry. To call them indolent is a cheap insult, though. It is not as though good employment opportunities are plentiful. It is not a sign of indolence to join a protest against those who have contributed to the prolonged economic crisis (which is a major cause of the unemployment Krauthammer seems to attribute rather to personal vice).

Nor does Krauthammer acknowledge any of the reasons people are angry at Wall Street. Some powerful corporate officers behaved very recklessly and irresponsibly and have not been duly punished for it, nor has enough regulatory tightening been implemented. Big business still enjoys great political power and privilege even after its irresponsible practices helped create a profound recession and massive unemployment. People have a reason to be indignant about that.

It is not clear what Krauthammer means by referring to $50,000 student loans and English degrees, except that he clearly does not think much of those who have those things and are protesting Wall Street. It is true that many people borrow a lot of money to obtain a degree that most well-paying jobs require. Presumably, some of these people do indeed major in English, not in itself a contemptible action. I suppose Krauthammer thinks they would be better off if they had majored in something more like business, but even that is not clear in this economy.

Krauthammer is probably correct that Democrats envy the success of the Tea Party movement. The Democrats might be thinking, “The other side is proving effective in promoting their agenda; we had better do the same.” If Krauthammer means to disparage them for this, he should explain why instead of dismissing protestors inaccurately as “big government anarchists.” People calling for government to tighten financial regulations can hardly be called anarchists. These are people who indeed believe in strong government, but a government that uses its strength to serve and protect ordinary people rather than an elite few. 

Defending Teachers

Preface

I'm a paraeducator. I support teachers by assisting needy students in achieving learning goals. I am not defending myself (not that there's anything wrong with that). I am defending the teachers.

Literature putting the number of teacher duty hours at or around 6 hours, 57 minutes contributes to a body of misinformation about the teaching profession. Portrayals of teachers on probation collecting full pay while awaiting years-long disciplinary review also do not help. These stories contribute to a perception that teaching is a relatively undemanding but surprisingly lucrative career. Teachers do more -- and spend more time doing it, and do it better -- than their critics acknowledge.  

            Some criticisms are matters of interpretation, but others are simply inaccurate. The 6 hours, 57 minutes only counts the time the teacher is required to be present in school, teaching and planning. It is impossible for a teacher to finish all planning, grading, conferencing, and other work in the fifty minutes or hour of planning time provided within that schedule. Inevitably, the teacher must arrive early, stay late, and probably take work home after that. Most teachers are quite willing, if not happy, to do so. But it is only natural and right for them to be offended when critics suggest they are generously paid and unfairly granted job security. Indeed, good pay, benefits and job security are not very much for a teacher to expect considering what is expected of a teacher.

            The job security part especially gets a bum rap. Tenure is easy to get if easy means getting through four years of college, a semester of student teaching, two successful years of regular teaching and career-long continuing education courses during your personal time. Now, it is true that some of the people who make it through this process are not great at what they do. But so what? Who is? If you think there are too many lousy teachers getting automatically re-hired every year, I would invite you to try to become a teacher. Go through the experience that makes half of new teachers leave after five years, suggesting that teaching is not actually so easy a career to stay in.

            So what makes teaching not a relatively undemanding job? 

            Lessons don’t just have to be taught; they also have to be planned. Since good planning takes about as much time as good teaching, a good teacher will spend about an hour planning for every hour teaching. A teacher who teaches several sections of the same course may be able to use one general lesson plan to cover several classes, but a teacher is also expected to differentiate instruction to accommodate students’ individual needs. You will be teaching students with ADHD who can’t concentrate long enough to name and date their papers, right along with students who finish whatever work you give them seemingly before you’ve finished handing the papers out. You will have students who can’t along with those who just won’t in addition to those who only very grudgingly will. All at the same time. If you get too many can’ts and won’ts, you may soon be subject to pay cuts or firing. You see, it’s your problem if the kids are improperly rested, nourished, parented, what-have-you, and their work suffers. If you insist that these ingredients are crucial to a student’s success, you will be accused of making excuses.

            But isn’t the planning period plenty of time to prepare lessons? The teacher has no students in her classroom!

            If you’re lucky you may get one lesson mapped out during your planning period if you are not too busy calling parents about missing homework (and missing kids) and such. Copying all the papers takes more time than you would think.

            So what? School ends at like three o’clock. Most people get off at five or six.

            When 3 p.m. or whenever rolls around, you have a stack of papers to correct, recommendation letters to write, perhaps after-school clubs to moderate – and lessons to plan for the next day, of course. It isn’t hard for after-hours work to become half of the time you devote to teaching.

            It is not only for the teaching profession that outsiders know only half the work required to do the job well. I didn’t appreciate how much work went into retail until I worked in a store, and now I have more tolerance for the underpaid and hardworking staff at such places when their omnipotence fails them and I have to wait longer than I’d like. I even suspect some teachers who aren’t parents themselves can be unfair on parents. I catch myself doing this: I forget that a parent’s workday never ends and it is entirely excusable if their performance is less than excellent.

            But the same forgiveness must apply to teachers as well. Of course, the people who believe teachers should be miracle workers will not admit that this is essentially what they are demanding. They say they are demanding only accountability and adequate yearly progress on student test scores. But the fact remains that only a part of the learning a student needs in order to become proficient in a subject – especially a subject area that is difficult for that student – can be achieved during school hours, the only time during which a teacher can be expected to make a difference. Teachers cannot follow students out the door and make sure they do their homework and spend some time reading instead of doing other things that may undermine what is being taught in school. This is especially true during summer vacation, when many students regress horribly. Perhaps evidence that teachers aren’t so ineffective after all: if students forget things when they’re not in school, they must have learned something in school. Yet the teachers may soon be punished if the students don’t meet arbitrary standards set based on ideals rather than realities.

            It is too easy to dismiss these points as lame excuses for poor performance. This is a common mistake people make when criticizing others: confusing explanation with resignation, as though to acknowledge the many variables that affect student performance is to give up on finding better teaching methods. We can make a deal here. Teachers listen to parents, but parents listen to teachers, and quit questioning their judgments about matters of classroom discipline.

            A parent who discusses the difficulties of home life should be listened to with compassion. When she tells you she had to work until 8 last night and that kept her learning-disabled child from getting as much homework done as an average student, she is not making some lame excuse. Of course individual ability along with many other circumstances affects a person’s performance. It is too easy to say they “should” overcome all disadvantages and measure up to some standard set by people in better circumstances. I don’t like shoulding all over myself and I don’t like shoulding all over other people either.

            At the same time, it is frustrating for a teacher to see students being chronically absent. Good explanations for poor performance cannot always be found. Sometimes it appears that education really is not a high priority for some people, and anyone who teaches knows this. It is sad when you see a student return to school saying she was sick but having no note to support her excuse (and not seeming in the least bit troubled about this). It is sad when you see a student who says his parents don’t have the cash for a field trip but you can’t help noticing the child’s expensive new shoes and overhearing his bragging about his new video-game system and watching the parent drop the child off with a cigarette in the adult’s mouth. Some people really don’t appear to be doing the best they can. Or, if it really is the best they can do, it at least must do its part to account for a child’s low performance.

            It is one thing for a parent to explain difficult home life as part of the reason for a child’s low performance in school. It is one thing for a parent juggling two jobs to miss a scheduled conference or be late refilling a child’s ADHD medication. These kinds of things I have more-than-average patience for. But some things parents can do make you want to scream. Having a hard time managing the demands of work and family is no reason to question a teacher’s judgment about a disciplinary matter in the classroom, to write unpleasant notes or make indignant phone calls to teachers based on students’ accounts of events, or appear at the classroom at the beginning of the school day expecting a conference when the teacher has 25 students to teach.

            There is no reason to believe your child’s teacher is being unfair to Johnny just because Johnny’s having a hard time following rules and completing assigned work and the teacher stubbornly challenges him (and implicitly you) to do better. That is what the teacher is supposed to do. If your child is irritated with a teacher because the teacher is demanding more or better work from the student, the default position should be to say, “Good for Mrs. So-and-so.” Frankly, do so even if you think the teacher is demanding too much or is being unreasonable. It might not be the best lesson to teach kids that life should always be fair and reasonable. That’s more unnecessary shoulding – this time over teachers. Don’t do that.

Government Isn't the (Only) Problem

People are protesting against Wall Street. About time.

You’re supposed to hate government. You’re supposed to think government is the problem not the solution. You’re encouraged to look at government’s many faults and failings to support this dim view. But this philosophy’s proponents have an agenda. It is not about making government better. It is about getting government out of the way so that the richest people and corporations can control the economy and the people’s representatives have no say except to say “yes” to whatever the big money people want.

Remember this anti-democratic strain of politican thinking when you watch people at Tea Party rallies protesting government. Some of them presumably only mean to protest government excess and waste. Others, including their very-well-to-do backers, have a more extreme agenda. Some, at last, are loudly not buying it.

Significant protests have broken out against Wall Street. This marks a nice contrast to protests that focus on the evils of big government. The legislators are flawed too, but unlike those on Wall Street who privatize profit while socializing loss, the legislators are charged with the service of the whole country, even those who can’t afford to own shares.

Naturally, the legislators can do a poor job discharging that service. Yet we the people at least get to vote them in and out, something we can’t do with the corporate executives who, even after doing a lousy job, often get to leave with their personal finances in excellent shape, to put it mildly. They do so after helping put more workers out in the cold and, if the Republicans have their way, will get to keep their Bush-era tax cuts too.

Government at its best acts as a check against this kind of ridiculous inequity. At its worst it exacerbates the problem by cutting taxes for the richest people while helping big business crush labor, slashing budgets for programs that poorer Americans need, and doing virtually nothing about this prolonged economic malaise that its malign neglect of its regulatory responsibility helped bring about.

The government can’t do as much as those protesting from the left may wish. But it can at least limit the effects of growing economic inequality and insecurity. Some adhere to a view of government so negative and cynical that they would allow the big money interests to have free rein, whether that is their intention or not. That would be a mistake. Criticize government, to be sure, but also believe in government. The big money people will not regulate themselves any more than they will provide secure employment at decent wages or good pensions. Government can help in these areas, and should. That goes whether it's called socialism or - as I would prefer - common sense.