Civitas Review Online

A recent story on WRAL in Raleigh caught my attention.  The headline said "Assault Weapons."  So I expected to see a story about some terrorist armed with a machine gun cranking off hundreds of rounds like the North Hollywood Shootout.  Instead, what I found was a common mistake among reporters:  mislabeling a semiautomatic rifle as an automatic.

While it may seem to be as trivial as comparing a Corvette with a Corvair (after all, they’re both cars), there is a difference between a real assault weapon and the civilian version.  During the Clinton Administration, technology that was well over 75 years old was banned, not for the weapon’s cababilites but for their looks.

WRAL reporter Beau Minick needs some education with regards to firearms.  The video footage of the story was shot in the evidence room of the Franklin County Sheriff’s office and showed several rifles that were purported to be the dreaded "assault weapon."  The reality is 3 of those shown were russian SKS rifles that were designed during World War II and are comparible to the American M-1 Garand rifle that GI’s used in every theater of the war.  It never was automatic and was originally designed with a 10 round magazine. It fires one round for every pull of the trigger and is not a machine gun and, as such, is not useful for modern military (i.e. assault) uses.

The Sheriff’s office also displayed an AK-47 type rifle.  Here again, more explanation is required. While the original AK-47 was designed way back in 1947 as an automatic assault rifle, the civilain version has alway been a single round weapon.  In fact, machine guns have been tightly regulated in the US since 1934.

Reporters need to learn the difference between what a gun does and what it looks like.  By carelessly throwing around the term "assault weapon," the media mislead the easily mislead public into thinking any average citizen can waltz down to his gun store and by a machine gun.

Philip Klein, writing in the American Spectator, implores conservatives to talk about healthcare:

Liberal activists have had more than a decade to pore over the failure of HillaryCare in 1994, and should Democrats capture the White House this fall and make further gains in Congress, they will be armed and ready to fight for government solutions to the U.S. health-care mess.

Much like Pierre and the lion, the persistent indifference of conservatives will virtually guarantee that government will devour the private market for health care.

So go, conservative. And talk healthcare. But if you’re going to do so, go armed.

First, there are a number of ways government policy drives up the cost of healthcare, making it unaffordable (which drives up the uninsured rate):

a) Mandated coverage items leave people with very expensive plans and fewer options,
b) The tax code is unequal and subsidizes the wealthy/employed, leaving the poor with a choice between no subsidy or Medicaid,
c) The copay system drives over-consumption (e.g. incentives to see the doctor for sniffles is wasteful),
d) Expanded Medicaid causes a "death spiral,"
e) In-state lock means you can’t buy less expensive insurance in other states (Why not?)
f) Unpooled risk due to government means premiums are higher.

Second, the left wants to use these distortions and escalating prices to push America to a crisis point. They want to implement no reforms that would lower prices, because they don’t want healthcare to be affordable. Am I being cynical? If we continue with the status quo, the left believes the ignorant masses will cry out for socialized medicine. And who knows? Maybe they will. But we can’t afford to have health socialism. It will kill innovation. It will cause our taxes to go through the roof. And it will mean your health choices are replaced with a bureaucracy that puts you in a queue for weeks or months to await a common procedure. We can do better… Ask a lefty: why not tax credits?
-Max Borders

..from a pundit who shall remain anonymous. A sliver:

1.      She has been a mayor and is a governor, so she has executive experience Obama does not.
2.      She ran against the corrupt Alaskan political machine of Ted
Stevens and Don Young, so she’s a different kind of Republican. She
disagrees with McCain on ANWR – she wants to drill.
3.      She blunts the feistiness of Biden. If he attacks her, he just looks like an angry and mean old man.
4.      She’s a mother of five children, one with Down’s syndrome,
5.      She’s married to a professional fisherman. She can talk
directly about the value of preserving our natural resources and how
commercial interests have an incentive to do that
6.      She’s very pro-life.
7.      She’s … umm … hot (apparently women over 40 like her are “cougars”)

So it begins. Now we have Obama/Biden v. McCain/Palin.
-Max Borders

Like most teacher pay scales, NC teachers are rewarded for time of service, credentials and advance degrees. Problem is, none of these variables is really tied to classroom effectiveness.  The lack of  linkage between good teaching and compensation, not only shapes the lifetime earnings arc of teachers but also impacts students whose achievement levels are strongly tied to the quality of teaching.  Developing a new NC teacher pay plan that remedies these shortcomings is the task Jacob Vigdor, associate professor of Public Policy Studies at Duke University tackles in a highly interesting and relevant article (Scrap the Sacrosanct Salary Schedule) in the fall issue of Education Next. Vigdor outlines the current problems when he writes:

On the North Carolina salary schedule, teachers receive rewards for experience, for attaining advanced degrees, and for becoming certified by the NBPTS. A masters’ degree entitles a teacher to a permanent 10 percent increase in salary. Teachers with doctoral degrees earn a permanent 15 percent differential relative to those with bachelors degrees.  Teachers with NBPTS certification receive a permanent 12 percent boost in salary. Finally teachers accrue increments to their salary as they gain experience. At the top rung of the experience ladder, teachers with 27 or more years in the classroom earn 68 percent more than starting teachers with equivalent credentials.

Vigdor then zeroes in on the real issue: 

But the available evidence suggests that the connection between credentials and teaching effectiveness is very weak at best, and the connection between additional years of experience and teaching effectiveness, which substantial in the first few years in the classroom, attenuates over time. Though exact results vary from one study to the next, there is little doubt that credentials and additional years of experience (beyond the first few years) matter far less to teacher effectiveness than they do to teacher compensation as it is currently designed.

The solution? Implement an evidence-based salary schedule that rewards educators in the early years of their careers when a teacher’s impact on student gains are most significant. Vigdor’s proposes a reasonable, revenue-neutral plan for correcting shortcomings in the current system. His plan infuses the current salary structure with market forces and ties teacher pay to effectiveness. These are much needed reforms, likely to draw support from conservatives and moderates and  stiff opposition from teachers unions. Still, NC needs to attract and retain more teachers.  UNC General Administration has estimated the state will need 5,000 new teachers a year for the next three years to meet staffing needs. All the more reason to give Vigdor’s proposal serious consideration.

If you haven’t yet read "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat, I recommend you do so. It won’t take you long – its only 76 pages. The brevity of this work is perfectly appropriate as the proper role of government, and the law it enforces, is quite minimal.

In his weekly column out today, Sheldon Richman reminds us of Bastiat’s seminal work – describing it aptly as "the best antidote for the toxic demagoguery that issues forth from across the political spectrum" during this election season.

Richman cites some of his favorite passages:

"What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense…. If every person has the right to defend — even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right."

"When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it — without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud — to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed.

I say that this act is exactly what the law is supposed to suppress, always and everywhere. When the law itself commits this act that it is supposed to suppress, I say that plunder is still committed, and I add that from the point of view of society and welfare, this aggression against rights is even worse."

The quote of the day from The Insider: 

"If there is no problem, I see no reason for government to participate in creating a problem."

Senate leader Marc Basnight, D-Dare, speaking in favor of an override of Gov. Mike Easley’s veto of boat towing legislation.

Really?  I mean seriously?

How about placing a moratorium on landfills and regulating their construction when there wasn’t a problem (well, other than YOU having a problem with one being built near your district)?

How about the menhaden fishing restrictions?

How about all the other environmental regulations you have helped enact to solve some perceived problem that has created bigger problems (impervious surfaces, storm water, mandatory recycling, biodegradable plastic bottles, etc.)?

How about all those people living peacefully in unincorporated areas that are involuntarily annexed into cities that you failed to protect?

If only your actions matched your words.

NEA: It’s Not Your Mother and Father’s Teachers Union
Earlier this year the National Education Association (NEA) named Governor Easley “America’s Greatest Education Governor.” The award raised lots of eye brows including mine and I wrote my thoughts in a piece available on our web site. While Easley has never been shy about helping the teachers unions and soliciting their help and financial contributions around election time, I wonder if he supports the increasingly radical political and social agenda now being advocated by the NEA. (The NEA Spells Out Its Policies).

NEA’s unwavering commitment to implementing the homosexual agenda in the public schools is particularly disturbing. Review NEA documents addressing the areas of homosexuality, sexual orientation, hate speech and nondiscrimination — and there are plenty of them — and you can see why and how NEA plans to politicize your children’s schools. The connections between NEA and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) are hard to miss. In addition, GLSEN has been involved with a number of initiatives in NC schools to promote homosexuality in the schools. Earlier this year NEA and the American Psychological Association produced the booklet, Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth.  The booklet distributed to all 16,000 U.S. School districts declares, “homosexuality is a normal expression of human sexuality.” Simply put, this book is an attempt to silence all discussion on the topic that homosexuality is a condition that can be changed.

NEA preaches inclusivity, diversity and respect for all political and religious beliefs. However, where is the respect for teachers who don’t want their union dues to encourage a lifestyle they oppose?  Where is respect for teachers and parents who oppose homosexuality activity on moral grounds?  Are these views included in NEAs message? It’s difficult to miss the hypocrisy. 

At a time when schools are afflicted with a myriad of academic problems that cry for attention, why the NEA chooses to embrace a radical political agenda is mystifying.  These developments say much about the organization’s real priorities. They also shout why parents, teachers and citizens ought to oppose the NEA at every step. 

Four years ago, the state of Maine enacted their attempt at "universal health coverage" – called Dirigo Care. Big surprise! The program hasn’t exactly lived up to its billing, as this article points out:

"Dirigo Care has cost the state’s taxpayers nearly $164 million in the four years since its inception. Although its intended purpose was to insure 128,000 people who had no health coverage, only 4 percent of that total, or just over 5,000 individuals, have been successfully removed from the rolls of the uninsured and into the state program, according to figures from the Maine Heritage Policy Center."

As is the norm for politicians everywhere, the only shortcoming is assumed to be that the program wasn’t funded at sufficient levels, so therefore:

"On April 15, Gov. John Baldacci (D) signed LD2247, An Act to Continue Maine’s Leadership in Covering the Uninsured, expanding the Dirigo Care program by $28 million annually."

A little cost-benefit analysis is in order. The program was supposed to cover 128,000 people and it ends up only enrolling 5,000 – yet the Governor thinks it needs more money? Expanding the program by nearly 70 percent even though the number actually enrolled is 1/25th the planned size? Typical government math, I guess. I can’t imagine the size of the tax hike Mainers would be facing today if the program enrolled even half of the original projections.

Let this serve as yet another warning to North Carolinians that may be seduced by the siren song coming from certain Raleigh lawmakers about state programs designed to drive us closer to "universal coverage."

The last time the Governor and General Assembly were at loggerheads about an issue, it was the Goodyear deal. It seemed Governor was going to race in and save us from an egregious use of state dollars to cough up corporate welfare. After veto threats, and what was probably a planned controversy, the General Assembly ended up giving more of our tax dollars to Goodyear than prior to the "controversy." No veto from Gov. Easley. 

So if that affair was any precedent, does that mean after the dust is settled we’ll have 10 ft. wide boats? Just wondering.
-Max Borders

BBQ is not a verb. (Thanks to Tony Woodlief.)
-Max Borders