Black and for school choice? You must be racist

So says the Louisiana Federation of Teachers.

The American Federation for Children (a lobby group promoting educational voucher programmes and tax credits to enable parents' taxes to follow the school they want their children to attend) reports that the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, an avowed opponent of school choice (presumably because it breaks their dominance of the profession and the single shop approach to negotiating pay) has tweeted that the Black Alliance for Education Options (BAEO), a group of African Americans who also support education vouchers/tax credits for private schools supports teaching that the KKK is good.

Yes.  A pro-Democrat, leftwing union claimed a black educational advocacy organisation endorsed the teaching of racism.

How did it come to this conclusion?  Who knows.  It simply tweeted this...

BAEO has responded and clarified...

Because some private schools enrolled in the program reportedly use texts that may attempt to downplay the awful history of the Ku Klux Klan, LFT (via twitter) called BAEO a "black organization that supports KKK vouchers." This is not only the most ludicrous description of our organization but it is also one of the most unintelligent. 

We unapologetically stand for parental choice. That doesn't mean that we believe every private school is great or that private schools are better than public schools. It simply means that while serious people go about the difficult and long-term work of trying to reform low-performing traditional public schools, we must also give parents real options that allow their children to get a quality education today. We trust that parents, when given the option to choose and when armed with accurate information, will make increasingly better choices for their children.

What I see is an interest group adopting any technique it can to smear those presenting options that threaten their position of privilege and lack of accountability.

The idea that a state monopoly on education and restrictions on access to schools only in a local area is good for children or what parents want is ludicrous, and it is little short of disgusting that teachers' unions - whose primary interest is to increase the pay, reduce the workload and reduce the accountability of teachers - continue to prey upon the vulnerable, weak and poor to demand that they maintain this monopoly on teaching their kids.  They fear new schools, dynamic ones, ones that pay teachers on performance, that hire teachers that aren't unionised into their collective gang, and that parents like them.  They fear not being able to lobby politicians to decide what those schools teach or what they should be paid.  They fear that, when given their own money back or given a way to transfer their taxes from public schools to other options, that they wont choose the options the teachers want monopolised.

They'll find every example they can of non-public schools not delivering the best performance, whilst ignoring the same of their monopoly schools, they will constantly claim that it's all about the children, that this is all they care about, all the time implying that they and the state knows best, not parents.  

Nothing is more important in pushing freedom and changing the culture of modern liberal democracies today than taking schools out of the hands of these peddlers of protectionism, hatred and statism.  That's why they, and their friends in politics (e.g. the Green Party in NZ), are so keen to oppose them.

For they argue private schools should remain for the rich, for the poor kids shouldn't get to go to a school which declares that individual achievement and excellence are the primary goal that should be strived for.

After all, what could be worse that kids from backgrounds that can't afford to pay taxes and private school fees, stand up and proudly live lives that aren't about dependence.

The Olympic honeymoon period is over

I've spent the last month or so basking in what truly was a magnificent time to be in London.  It was, on two occasions, a centre not of banal cultural emptiness, not of history shrines and hoards of tourists eager to look backwards, not of a sub-culture of misogynistic violent no-hopers eager to pillage and destroy in anger at their own uselessness, not a centre for Islamist horror, but of individuals as elite athletes, whether Olympic or Paralympic, striving and winning, and in a culture that truly glorified and celebrated them.  Whilst Team GB got by far the greatest attention, there was never an ounce of resentment or denial of the wondrous successes of those from other countries, the remaining malignant nationalism that comes with the Olympics (and which China still pushes), was not apparent. 

It was truly a celebration of the achievements and efforts of thousands of individuals, it saw a mood of benevolence and patience, as both the cost and the draconian approach to branding were largely ignored, and people celebrated.  Yes, I wish it hadn't happened because it was destructive of wealth (proven also by July seeing a drop of around 200,000 overseas visitors and drop of spending by visitors of around £120 million compared to the previous year) and a travesty of a waste of money, but it did come with that beautiful element of human beings striving, succeeding, proud of success in any form (whether it be medals or personal bests), and others genuinely celebrating in their success. 

The bubble of that culture has been well and truly popped.  One minor event was at the Trade Union Congress, where t-shirts were being sold that said that when Thatcher dies a generation of trade unionists will be dancing on her grave.  It was being sold by the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers' Centre, which itself is part funded by three local authorities. All of the nastiness of Marxism epitomised in one product, and whilst the TUC condemned it, Labour leader Ed Miliband chose to remain silent.

However, that minor piece of disgusting behaviour is nothing compared to the true travesty of justice over Hillsborough.  David Cameron has apologised for the vile behaviour of the South Yorkshire Police and the emergency services, not just for their grotesque negligence that apparently allowed as many as 42 of the 96 who died in that tragedy to die unnecessarily, but their lies, manufacturing of evidence and perverting the course of justice to cover up their own ineptness.  This conspiracy by agents of the state to cover up their own failings is not just disgusting, but criminal.  There should be people charged for acts which, if they were private citizens, would see them in prison for many years.   Altering statements and editing evidence to conceal failings is palpably inexcusable.  

Many in police forces wonder why people don't trust them, why they are antagonistic or obstructive, it is because of this sort of activity.  The willingness to flagrantly act without good faith.

Finally, it looks like a badly made film lampooning Islam and making it out to be a religion of violent bigots, has incited lots of groups of Muslims to act as violent bigots.   Those who think that the act of private citizens in a country is the act of a state, those who believe that the appropriate response to being offended is violence.

Meanwhile, the US is led by an Administration which has as its first response is to sympathise with those offended, whose Secretary of State condemns the film as disgusting and reprehensible (as well as condemning the violent reaction to it).   

Yet there is hope.  Mitt Romney, who is easy to criticise for so many reasons, gets it right by saying:

America will not tolerate attacks against our citizens and against our embassies. We will defend also our constitutional rights of speech and assembly and religion. We have confidence in our cause in America. We respect our Constitution. We stand for the principles our Constitution protects. We encourage other nations to understand and respect the principles of our Constitution because we recognize that these principles are the ultimate source of freedom for individuals around the world.

“I also believe the Administration was wrong to stand by a statement sympathizing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead of condemning their actions. It’s never too early for the United States Government to condemn attacks on Americans, and to defend our values. The White House distanced itself last night from the statement, saying it wasn’t ‘cleared by Washington.’ That reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world.

When was the last time you heard a major party US Presidential candidate standing explicitly behind free speech and freedom of religion? When was the last time that you heard one talk about those principles being a source of freedom for individuals around the world?  Where is the stereotypical theocratic authoritarian that is the caricature that Democrats want to paint him to be? 

What exactly could anyone of a classically liberal (not socialist liberal) bent oppose of that statement?

Farewell Thomas Szasz

Thomas Szasz passed away last weekend.  He was a prolific writer and critic of psychiatry.  He was vociferous in his view that so much of psychiatry was not scientific at all, and was rooted in social and political beliefs that when people behaved in ways that were unacceptable that they were "ill".  

He only saw illness in those who had physiological attributes of brain damage or disease, whether they be congenital, infection, stroke or accidental, not in conditions that were diagnosed with no signs of such damage, such as depression and schizophrenia.

His famous quote was. "If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; If you talk to the dead, you are a schizophrenic"

He was highly critical of the use of drugs to "treat" perceived mental illness, looking to ECG and lobotomy as previous coarse and even inhumane exercises in curing behaviour.

He talked of how women who didn't act as were expected were deemed "hysterical", about attempts to cure homosexuality through surgery.   This and other attempts by psychiatry to diagnose and treat people reflected more about the context of social norms of the day as to what was "acceptable" behaviour, than to actual disease. He saw incarceration used more and more as a means of control than to protect people from those who would behave badly, as few people deemed to be mentally ill commit criminal acts upon others.  He rejected the defence of insanity as being an abrogation of personal responsibility, and believed the defence should not exist.  He wanted people accountable for their behaviour which it denied the rights of others, but he was a stalwart defender of the rights of others to live their lives as they saw fit, as long as they did not interfere with others doing the same.

He thought of psychiatry as a profession full of people bent on control, and indeed the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was in part inspired by Szasz's observations of the profession. 

He saw some diagnosis of mental illness as denying people responsibility for their own behaviour meaning they could have control of their lives taken over by professionals, only too keen to medicate, incarcerate, electrocute and operate.

Psychiatry loathed him.  He was a libertarian.  He was no fan of psychotropic substances or narcotics per se, but he loathed the war on drugs and loathed depictions of drug users as all "addicts", and believing that the state's treatment of drug users created far more harm than they ever did to themselves or others.

Reason has a good obituary about him, along with a series of links to articles, some supportive some scathing.

However, for me Szasz has the status of a man who confronted power, who confronted orthodoxy and did so despite being excoriated by them, for whilst he was not always right, he was not meek.

For who can pick up a copy of the "The Myth of Mental Illness" and not be rattled by the title, and not consider that the term itself has been used, so very much, to simply describe people who are having problems living.

Tax stops Usain Bolt from bothering more with Britain

It was telling that in a live BBC interview during the Olympics that Usain Bolt said that he would love to spend more time in the UK, but the tax laws make it not worth his while.

The Taxpayer's Alliance explains why:

Under current rules, athletes competing in the UK are liable to pay tax on their winnings in addition to paying levies on any of their passive income such as marketing, sponsorship and image rights deals. Athletes often have to pay a 50 per cent tax rate on their appearance fee as well as a proportion of their total worldwide earnings. 

No wonder he can't be bothered.

Of course, neither the supposedly "pro low tax" Conservative Party, nor the Liberal Democrat or "opposition in name only" Labour Party agreed with him, largely because all three parties have been embarking on a cannibalistic feeding frenzy on tax for months. How did he compete in the Olympics then? Simple. The UK Government was told it had to suspend these provisions for the extent of the Olympics: The International Olympic Committee insisted that HMRC suspended its normal tax regime for those competing in the London 2012 Olympics. London simply wouldn’t have been able to host the Games otherwise. And the Government has also said that tax breaks will be available to the Commonwealth Games and those taking part in the 2017 World Athletics Championships in London. They've all been claiming how moral it is for people to pay taxes, and how tax avoidance (i.e. legally acting in ways to not pay more tax than you are required to) is immoral. It's been a Marxist orgy of claims that tax avoidance "costs the UK" money, when what is actually meant is that it costs the government - when in fact people with more of their own money tend to invest it or spend it, benefiting them and the people who gain the investment or sell them goods and services. The classical Marxist bogey of tax avoidance is the stereotype of some rich businessman sitting in a suit with a cigar laughing as he appears to do nothing whilst gaining more and more money. He's probably a banker, or someone who earned lots of money in ways that are "not honourable" to socialists (remember earning a six-figure sum as a politician or unionist is ok though). Usain Bolt doesn't fit that stereotype. He's loved by millions of fans. Nobody dare utter a criticism of him or the substantial earnings he gets from promotional deals. See it is ok to make money running fast and being attached to ad campaigns, but not to run an advertising company, or manage his investments, or own a hotel he stays at. Yet the political silence of this issue is palpable. Clearly the tax laws as they stand not only deter the UK from hosting athletics events (when they get hosted they do so with exemptions), but stop people from living and working in the UK as athletes. It is completely self defeating, it means there is less money in the economy and indeed if Bolt lived in the UK and paid no income tax, the UK would still be better off. This is a man who wouldn't be claiming public housing or welfare benefits, he would be almost certainly never using the NHS (when he can afford private healthcare) and would be paying plenty of VAT on his consumption (and fuel tax and air passenger duty on travelling) to cover a decent contribution to defence, law and order and other state spending. However, to argue that, Red Ed Miliband, his new sycophants in the Liberal Democrats and the sellout Conservatives would have to admit that, actually, most wealthy people don't cost the state very much at all. They pay their own way, pay for their own housing, education, health care, pensions and by and large only have a role for the state in defence, law and order and the provision of roads. Because, you see, the underlying reason for the clamour for tax is to take from the rich to give to everyone else. Now if you were Usain Bolt, earning for a relatively short period of your life, enormous sums of money for promotional campaigns, why would you decide that middle class and low income British deserve to get half of all your earnings, when you can stick to Jamaica?

The positive legacy of the London 2012 Olympics

Now I was quite curmudgeonly about the Olympics in advance, for reasons I've already written about.  That being the economic disaster they are proving and will prove to be, and the overweening authoritarianism both written into legislation and enforced by the Police, indeed, such reasons continue to pop up, such as the man arrested by Police for not appearing to enjoy the event he was watching (he has Parkinsons' Disease).   

Kiwiwit has a good post about reasons to dislike the games as well.  

In almost sickening cliche terms there is constant talk of "legacy" from the Olympics.  Part of this is attributed to the construction of venues, although these will be grossly underutilised and the stadium itself is likely to be leased at below a return on capital to some soccer club.   Part of it comes from handing over the athletes' village as new housing, some of which is the awful cliche "affordable housing" (I didn't know I lived in unaffordable housing - except it would be before long if I lost my job).  Part of it is the claim that the record British medals' haul will inspire lazy kids to take up sports.  It might do a little, but that tends to be over exagerrated.

Yet for all these negatives, there is a single overwhelmingly fantastic element to the Olympics.

It is a display and celebration of personal achievement.

People who to a man and woman, tried their hardest, spent months or years training and practicing and giving it their commitment to pursue their own goals.  

They are not altruists.  The medals were not won so that Britain could feel great.  They were not won to boost the economy or to encourage others to take up the sport.  

They were won by people who wanted to win as their individual achievement - including those in teams.  It was a desire to be the best.

This in a world where the word "elite" is taken as a sneer that success comes only from privilege, this in a world where individual success in so many fields is taken as a chance to demand a pound of flesh for everyone else.  A world where those who make things happens by applying their mind and energy to ideas are simply seen as obliged to carry everyone else along with themselves.  A world where so many see those as succeed as hosts to suck the blood from.  

Further to this has been the unashamed joy of those winning, with justified personal pride that their own effort and skill have paid off.  However, also delightful has been the joy of many of those who did not get gold.  Why?  Because they gave it their all, they blamed nobody else for not getting gold, if they did blame someone it was themselves.   Total responsibility for their actions and result.   This one year after London was beset by riots from those expressing the antithesis of this.  Nihilistic parasites destroying, invading, stealing, blaming it on the Police, blaming it on society, blaming it on the government, when their motivation was a combination of euphoria from destruction and personal gain directly at the expense of others.  

Yet those celebrating and enjoying the Olympics have not just been those competing and their team mates, families and coaches, but the spectators both in person and on television.  Much of that has been a patriotic joy at seeing British men and women succeed, particularly as the story of so many of them is one of coming from an average background, deciding to pick a sport, finding they do well and wanting to do better.   However, it isn't just some blind nationalism.  Usain Bolt's success has captured the imagination of millions, many of whom have no connection to Jamaica.  Michael Phelps likewise.   Indeed one of the great points noticed by many athletes have been the spectators, predominantly British, cheering on the winners, regardless of nationality.

This celebration of success, achievement, personal, is overwhelmingly positive.  

It's been noted that this is the antithesis of the recent celebrity culture of attention seeking of non-achievers.  The world that of the likes of Piers Morgan, who dared slam Team GB athletes who stood on the podium with gold medals and didn't sing "God Save the Queen".  This overpaid unachieving tabloid media hack whose life has been to invade the privacy of others to sell pap populist bullshit almost epitomises the leadership of the attention seeking vacuousness of mass culture, most notably seen in the nobodies called the Kardashians.

Gold medal athletes are so far above and beyond parasites like Morgan that they shouldn't give him the oxygen of their attention.

Meanwhile, almost a complete sideshow during this time has been the politics of it all.  Those who themselves want to suck popularity and publicity from the achievement of others and gloat or point score around the games - or rather, those who gleefully spent other people's money for the event under the cover of, at best, non-evidence based wishful thinking about the benefits of the games.

So, if the one thing that is taken away from the games is a sense of joy, awe and respect for those who achieved the pinnacle of their chosen sports, then that IS the positive legacy.  A legacy that shows children and adults that people can achieve great things if they show determination, discipline and responsibility.   A legacy that also shows that for most athletes, achievement is not seen in medals, but in getting to personal bests, participating with world champions with the chance of success, and almost none of them blame others for not getting gold. 

It is an antidote to the culture of equality worship, the years of opposition to competitive sports, the idea that someone succeeding "makes the losers feel bad", that those who succeed must always bear in mind the effect of their success on those who don't.

This corrosive attitude that those who succeed shouldn't celebrate their achievement, and that there should be celebration of those who come last may have a place in encouraging young children (or the intellectually disabled) to try things and learn to get better, has permeated its way into cultures with a "tall poppy syndrome".  It's perhaps New Zealand's worst cultural trait - the willingness to sneer and think someone who is proud of having done well and keeps doing well "thinks he is better than the rest of us".  So what if he is, he's probably right.

Usain Bolt shows the antithesis of this attitude. "Fastest man in the world" who knows he is, is glad he is, and is unashamed about it, and millions of people share the joy of seeing him do just that. He did not think for a moment to give his team mate Yohan Blake a chance to "be equal" by getting a Gold Medal, and Blake would never have wanted him to.

The Olympics doesn't see the competition getting retarded or limited just to allow someone else to have a chance at winning.

As such, despite it being a grand taxpayer funded display of state celebration (which it is, and which more than a few countries use it for), it is an antidote to the culture of our times.

Who of the Marxists who demand that the people at the lowest level jobs in businesses be considered the creators of the true wealth of those businesses would stand up and say "Usain Bolt didn't do that" because there were others who washed his laundry, drove him to the venue, cooked his meals or made his shoes.

Did the people in the factories in Asia producing his running gear win his gold medal?  No.

Indeed the BBC tried desperately hard to push a Marxist criticism of the games on Newsnight a few nights ago, claiming some Team GB medals came from "elite sports" that only the wealthy could pursue, and the Olympics were "out of reach" because so many sports were not mass events.  The argument is so absurd as to be barely worthy of a response, when the Olympics is full of track and field events, team ball events, swimming and others that are accessible.  How many children get inspired by Usain Bolt running like a champion?  The Marxist MP Dianne Abbott talked of a lack of ethnic diversity among those benefiting from the games, denying the remarkably multi-ethnic backgrounds of the medallist (and indeed both her and the BBC's hypothesis were swatted down within 24 hours when Jade Jones (from a small Welsh village) and Nicola Adams (from Leeds of Afro-Caribbean descent) won gold for taekwondo and boxing respectively.

So the equality bullies, the people who always want to point out how unfair life is because not everyone everywhere can win gold, not everyone everywhere can get the time or money to become elite athletes, have been overwhelmed by a tide of enthusiasm, warmth and joy from those who DO succeed.

That, despite all that has been wrong about these Olympics, is quite beautiful.

Finally, to almost epitomise this sheer joy and delight at success, is one of my favourite moments from the Olympics.  The absolutely unalloyed expression of love, pride and emotion from Bert le Clos.  This interview was on the BBC minutes after his son, Chad le Clos, won the 200m butterfly in swimming  beating his hero Michael Phelps.