Blair Wars: The Prime Minister Strikes Back

After 13 years in British Legislature and 10 as P.M., Blair has some choice opinions on the modern media.

Text of Speech (Provided by the Telegraph)

Coverage:
Smart Mobs
The Guardian
The Times

Health Care

Distribution of Power and Resources

1) Federal governments excel in some areas where local governments do not and warfighting, dictating foreign policy, and regulating interstate commerce are among the issues occupying this category. Some problems, however, are best left to local authorities or the private sector. These include education, enforcing penal codes and civil codes, trash collecting, etc.

Unfortunately, not all issues are easily sorted into federal, local and private areas of expertise. One of the trickier issues is health care. Certainly it is not beneficial for the federal branches to be involved in day to day oversight of doctors offices. Yet, when staring down the barrel of Avian Flu, we may find it in our hearts, and in the interstate commerce clause, to let big brother help us effectively transport and distribute medical supplies. Before embracing this idea wholly, we must ask if Canadian-style socialized medicine is best.


2) If rapid transportation and distribution are the assets of social health care, than what are it's liabilities?

The environment most conducive to productivity will allow maximum freedom without sacrificing safety and security. I am a firm believer in free men working in free markets with minimally invasive laws enforcing ethics and safety that bolster liberty, rather than detract from it.

Socialized health care would rid the industry of competition, effectively weakening the product and taking away the basic check and balance that the capitalist open market provides. This means longer lines, higher prices, worse service, and more people dead or suffering from disease. In short, we become France. (If visiting France, do yourself a favor and don't get hurt.) The inevitable increase in death and disease would present a scourge on the entire nation far greater even than the financial burden that would destroy our economy with little gained.

Berkeley Part 2

"How the structure of higher education empowers the elite"

Recent conversations with philosophy students have led me to question the relevance of graduate level academic philosophy. They have responded by saying that the ideas of academia do affect the common man, but that this process is slow. The following is my amateur hypothesis explaining how this trickle-down occurs:

First, the academic elite decide on a vocabulary of terms and a set of acceptable ideas which they record in esoteric books and teach in philosophy classes. These classes are a mandatory part of undergraduate collegiate education, which means that any person desiring their union card to the middle class is required to talk to the proverbial "philosophy boss" for his dose of wisdom during his first few years out of the house. This young mind must first run the gauntlet of the prevailing worldview of the elite before he can take his diploma to the marketplace.

This explains how high-brow philosophy comes to middle-managers, but it does not explain how Derrida comes to kindergarten.

To do this, I will examine the tools used to control access to our society's children. Anyone wishing to teach primary or secondary school must be accredited by the state in which they wish to teach. State accreditation requires one to have a college degree in their concentrated subject. Additionally, this degree must be from an accredited institution of higher learning and this accreditation cannot be gained without a Gen. Ed. curriculum that includes -BINGO!- "Intro to Philosophy." This course's syllabus is subject to approval from a state inspector who will have a degree from a philosophical graduate program in good standing with the ruling authorities.

Thus the system by which we regulate our education structure, particularly, though not exclusively in government schools, aids the academic and philosophical elite in their control of education at the kindergarten level. This would be perfectly fine if the people controlling the levels of power in these institutions were benevolent and trustworthy, but as a bible-thumping monotheist who is resistant to naturalism, I have no faith in the academy to safeguard the minds of my children.

Friends of mine posit home-schooling as a way to short-circuit this system and reassert natural autonomy, but this is simply impossible at the collegiate level. A wholesale break from the scholastic system is something we can’t do, but I am not without hope. What we can do is read good books. Then we can read them to our children so that when it comes time for high-school English, (which at my school was just post-modern philosophy in the place of grammar) they will not soak up the most dominant world view like a sponge before a fire hose, but rather they will thoughtfully and prayerfully consider what the believe, and why.

Berkeley, CA

I am current in Berkeley, CA, which means that the view from my window looks something like this:Cal is a beautiful campus but a mysterious paradox. Specifically, It is a place of political sloganeering where the bumper sticker outmaneuvers the treatise, but where books are ubiquitous. While the selection may be one-sided, the sheer volume of literature here gives one pause to ask, "Don't they own televisions?"

This month's bestsellers occupy the positions of honor, just as at my usual bookstores back home, but Berkeley is also unrivaled in the ready availability of the classics. For the next few days, I will asking what makes people who read books so old stray so far from their culture's traditions. Keep reading as I continue my new series:
"Berkeley, Berkeley, Wherefore art thou Berkeley?"

Tomorrow's post:
"How the structure of higher education empowers the elite"