A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

State Impact Indiana on Challenge for Rural Schools with Inadequate State Funding

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Indiana General Assembly school vouchers

The “money follows the child” model of school funding can have a negative impact on local communities.

Claire McInerny, writing for State Impact Indiana, has a good article on challenges faced by Wabash County and City Schools due to the State’s approach to funding and the loss of students in their districts. The State takes a “money follows the student” approach to school funding which leads to problems when students move elsewhere. Efforts to keep the schools going have resulted in Wabash City Schools closing schools. Now their gifted program takes place in a former storage room.

Scenarios like this exist across the state. Over the last decade, almost all rural school districts lost students. And because state funding is based on enrollment, when students leave, so does cash.

On top of this, consolidation and school closures upset parents, who may elect to move their children, which means even less money.

I’ve argued against money-follows-the-child funding on any number of occasions. It’s misguided because children are not widgets — some cost more than others to fund. It’s also misguided because the public dollars aren’t an entitlement for individual students. After all, lots and lots of people without children pay into the system. Those dollars are ultimately investments communities are making in themselves. Recognition should be given to the fact that public money is ultimately paying for a public good — a public good that both educates the children and creates a public institution that makes the community a better place to live.

It looks like, under the current funding model, Wabash City and Wabash County are looking at County-wide consolidation.

Italy Trip – Part I: Travel to Rome

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IN THE BEGINNING

It began, as all great tales do, as a love story. In this case, the love of incredibly cheap airfare! The kids are 11 and 13 which is a great age for traveling: old enough to be largely self-sufficient, but young enough to still enjoy our company. We knew generally that we wanted to take them to Europe so they would have at least a little context for the world outside of the the United States. Italy, along with Ireland, Spain, Germany, and England were potential destinations. Amy, being an inveterate planner, downloaded an app called “Hopper” which monitors airfare. We knew generally the dates we were interested in and the destinations, so she could keep track of bargains that might arise. During this period, we were hemming and hawing about where to go. 

Then, one day, she sends me an e-mail. Hopper alerted her to an AirBerlin flight to Rome, round trip, for $411. The “downside”: we have to spend a night in Berlin on the way home. Oh no! Our decision was made. At those rates, we could spend less on our entire vacation than we spent on airfare alone during a vacation to Hawaii a couple of years ago. We decided to spend a few days in Rome and then spend a few days in Florence. I picked Florence based on a general notion that this was a central location in the beginning of the Enlightenment.

Day 1: Travel and the Trevi Fountain

On the Road to O’Hare

The trip out was fairly smooth, but there were a few minor bumps. We parked at the WallyPark airport service at O’Hare. I believe there had been a change in the international departure gate recently, so the driver deposited us at the wrong gate. So, we had to take the airport train to get to the proper gate. Once there, AirBerlin shares space with another airline — Etihad out of the United Arab Emirates. Ultimately, a good number of AirBerlin travelers had to wait in what amounted to a relatively cramped aisle way until the Etihad flight was taken care of. These hiccups can be chalked up to us not being very experienced international travelers. The 8 ½ hour flight east was tough on our systems — sleep is tough to come by in those airplane seats and having the night abbreviated is disorienting. Cole, in particular, seemed frustrated by his inability to sleep. We were all probably a little cranky by the time we landed. AirBerlin really likes to feed you: dinner and breakfast plus a couple of snacks. New to me: complimentary wine on the flight!

Boarding the plane from Berlin to Rome.

We landed at Tegel in Berlin and had a two hour layover. The airplanes exit from the front and back which makes the deboarding process much faster. You take stairs down from the plane to the tarmac with shuttles to the terminal. There was some issue with unloading the shuttles, so we were stuck there for longer than was comfortable. One fellow passenger joked that if the shuttle had had to go a few more meters, AirBerlin probably would have served us another meal.

At this point, it’s probably worth mentioning that our family knows very little Italian and even less German. So, it was helpful to us that knowledge of English in these countries is very widespread. I shared with the kids my deep amusement (because I’m a nerd with a peculiar sense of humor) at the phrase “English is the lingua franca.” Lingua franca is a Latin phrase for “french language” (technically language of the Franks, I suppose) used to denote a universal bridge language which, at this point in history, is English.  This led to a discussion about how Americans are generally very unlikely to know foreign languages when compared to the rest of the world. I cautioned not to draw the conclusion that this was because Americans were self-centered xenophobes. Rather, our country is very big, making international travel much more difficult and, furthermore, because English is the lingua franca, there’s not quite as much practical upside to us learning English as there is for people from other countries to learn English. That said, I would encourage anyone to get out of the country if they can because it expands your worldview and helps provide some context for evaluating our own country.

Chilling in Tegel

 The Tegel Airport in Berlin was a lot smaller than I anticipated for an airport in a major capital city. This post explains that the airport was constructed in a hurry during the Berlin airlift. There is a larger airport under construction in Berlin, but our conversation with the hotel manager where we stayed (more on that later) suggests that the project is a major boondoggle with a completion date that keeps getting pushed back. While we were in Tegel, I noted (for no particular reason) a few young Americans who struck me as being “of a type.” There was a couple who I (perhaps unfairly) characterized as crunchy hippie types speaking with a guy who was more of a guitar bro. He was playing them a few songs and they were nodding along at the profundity. I’m having a little fun with these descriptions, but I don’t want to get too carried away rolling my eyes at “kids these days.” If what they’re doing brings them joy, that’s sufficient reason for doing them.

After a short layover, we boarded the Alitalia plane from Berlin to Rome. When we arrived in Rome, the driver for the car that had been arranged by the apartment rental place was at a different gate. So, there was a bit of waiting and exchange of phone calls involved in securing our ride. The traffic in Rome is chaotic. Lights and lanes seem to be more guidelines than rules. Smart cars, pedestrians, and scooters weave in and out of each other, mostly avoiding contact. But, we made it to the apartment we rented in Trastavere on Via Degli Orti d’Alibert, maybe half a block from the Tiber River. (It was a little longer to walk to the Tiber because there wasn’t a straight path from the place we were staying.) The apartment we rented was on the fourth and fifth floors of the building and had a pretty outstanding terrace on the roof. The kids did a good job of hauling their own luggage up the four flights of stairs.

Lookin’ out my back door. (View from our apartment).

There was a little shop a couple doors down from our building, so we went in. There was an old Italian grocer, straight out of central casting who didn’t speak a lick of English. So, it was a good first challenge for the road weary travelers. At first we couldn’t tell if he was telling us whether he was opened or closed. But, when I recognized that he was telling us that he closed at 4:30, that seemed to bridge enough of the communication gap for us to get things going.  Part of the problem was that he wouldn’t let us just go grab likely products and bring them to the register. He wanted to get them for us. But, ultimately, we secured some wine, beer, meat, cheese, and bread and brought them back to the apartment. Then, it was nap time! We hadn’t slept much in the last 24 hours and everyone was feeling it. I’m not sure how much everyone else slept, but I got a few hours of much needed sleep, and we were ready to go see a little bit of Rome.

The Massons at Trevi

We decided to make the approximately 1.5 mile walk to the Trevi Fountain. Unfortunately, the Apple Maps app pretty quickly directed us to go straight through a wall. We were in a strange city and still getting used to navigating the narrow cobblestone streets where the had to crowd near a building wall when a car was coming past. We would quickly get used to this, and navigating the city wasn’t terribly difficult, but it did take some getting used to. We had read a lot about the prevalence of pick pocketing in Italy. We didn’t experience any ourselves, but we were on guard against it, so that added to the initial tension.

Near the fountain (and really near any tourist attraction) there were lots of street vendors selling a random variety of things such as wooden bowls, fidget spinners, and selfie sticks. (But, despite the apparent randomness, the sales seemed to be the same 6 or 7 items throughout Rome and Florence.) The Fountain, like so much in Rome, really was spectacular. Wikipedia tells me that “Trevi” refers to three roads, and the fountain is the terminal point where an aqueduct brought water into Rome and served the city for 400 years. In 1629, Pope Urban VII came up with the idea of a sculpture that would make the site more dramatic which, after a long time, led to the project which was completed in 1762. We didn’t know all that at the time — we just appreciated the beauty of the place, being in the midst of the other site seers, and threw in our coins.

Our first dinner in Rome was at the Piccolo Buco, not far from the Trevi Fountain. There was a fairly significant wait to get in, but they handed out some free glasses of wine while we waited, so that was fun. We had no idea, but this appears to be somewhat common — something similar happened while we waited for a restaurant in Florence a few days later. Common or not, it made us feel special! The kids, who got nothing out of that deal, perhaps weren’t quite as content with the wait. But, ultimately the food was good. Harper was angling for some cheesecake that she didn’t get that night. However, her raising the subject prompted me to tell her the story of my oldest sister having a nightmare about cheesecake once when we were kids — as I recall, it featured little men (I always pictured them as being like Oompa Loompas) holding out plates and chanting “cheesecake, cheesecake.”. My other sister & I never let her forget it. Harper and Cole cracked up when I told them about it. After a nice dinner, we made our way back to the apartment. We were quickly becoming more comfortable walking around in the city.

Next time: The kids wear their Sunday best for the Pope.

Memorial Day

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Liberty

“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.” 

“Here we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” Abraham Lincoln said that in honor of American soldiers who died at the hands of Confederates at Gettysburg. Such resolution is something we should renew on Memorial Day. Sacrifices impose a duty upon the recipients of those sacrifices. The living should live so as to ensure  that the deaths of those who died in service to our country continue to be meaningful. We should live so as to ensure that future lives are used judiciously and, if they must be lost, that they are sold dearly.

We are reminded to honor those who died for our freedom. As President Lincoln said, “it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do so.” But, as citizens, we would be failing our dead if we don’t recognize that not all who died in service were being deployed in a cause that promoted freedom. Too often, the deaths of those who served are used cynically as a shield for policies and policymakers who are not nearly as noble as those who died in their service. And this is why, on Memorial Day, I often return to this theme — that we should honor not just those who died for our freedom, but all those who died in service to our country. This is not to disrespect our dead, but to honor them. We honor them by advocating policies and electing policy-makers that use the lives of our soldiers wisely.

Soldiers who die in battle often represent a failing on one level or another — not a failing on the part of the solider, but a failing on the part of the citizenry and the leaders we choose. We failed to avoid the conflict in the first place and there was a failure of imagination to solve the conflict in a way that did not cost the soldier his or her life.

As Isaac Asimov’s fictional Salvor Hardin said, “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Or, if Sun Tzu is more your style, “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” There are times where the value gained or preserved through war exceeds the costs of war itself. And there are times where the gain or preservation can only be accomplished with the loss of life. But, all too often the gain or preservation does not match the cost. And, all too often, the loss of life could have been eliminated or lessened through better diplomacy or better strategy.

Today is a day to remember and honor the individuals who died serving our country. Let’s do our duty as citizens by honoring them and by taking care not to fail those who currently serve and will serve in the future.

The Hits Keep Coming for Indiana Voucher Schools

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Indiana General Assembly school vouchers

A bus load of money being taken from public schools to subsidize families who never would have sent their kids there.

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an editorial critical of Indiana’s largest-in-the-nation voucher program following an in depth NPR report by Cory Turner (transcript of Morning Edition interview here.)

A couple of months ago, there were new studies showing that vouchers did not improve education. Those studies followed on one that showed Indiana’s weak to non-existent accountability and audit requirements for use of vouchers. (See also, the investigation into waste of state money at Todd Academy.)

The most recent NPR investigation revealed that most Indiana voucher money was funding kids who had never been to public school and never would have gone. Roughly 40% of private school students receive a voucher. 306 of the 313 schools receiving voucher money were religious. “Religious environment/instruction” was the number one reason given for enrolling kids in private schools. Not to put too fine a point on it, Indiana’s vouchers are a subsidy for private religious schools; not “choice” for low-income public school students. This is not happening in a vacuum. This money is coming from our public schools. The state education budget has not recovered from the Great Recession in 2009. “Indiana spends less per pupil, after adjusting for inflation, than it did in 2009. Meanwhile, it’s spending $146 million on private school vouchers this school year.”

Additionally, there is the fact that vouchers are misguided since some kids simply cost more to educate than others. Students are not interchangeable widgets. And, it turns out, those with special education needs are being turned away from private schools. In Fort Wayne, for example, special needs students make up 15% of the general population but only 6.5% of the private school population.

This is key to understanding Indiana’s voucher program. Public schools are required to accept all students, regardless of disability. Voucher schools are not. In many cases, it’s not the students who choose the schools but the schools that choose the students.

Of the NPR study, the Journal Gazette summarizes:

• A price tag of $146 million a year and growing

• Fewer than 1 percent of voucher students transferred from a public school identified as failing

• Voucher-school enrollment policies that discriminate against special education students

• Little financial transparency for the public dollars flowing to private interests

• Per-pupil education spending, adjusted for inflation, less than 2009 as the state picks up tuition bills for more families who always intended to send their children to religious schools

• Early research finding voucher students show no gains in reading and “statistically significant average annual losses in mathematics” compared with their public school experience

And all of this comes even before we get to the impact on the community. As I argued in a Journal Gazette column of my own:

The concept of citizens and the public are closely aligned. Public education isn’t important merely because it serves the public; it is important because it creates the public. The school’s role as a public institution is something that often gets left out or ignored when the subjects of “school choice” and vouchers are brought up. Disregard of the public schools’ role in creating the public is a fundamental flaw in the “money-follows-the-child” model of funding education.
. . .
The more we turn ourselves from members of the public into an atomized collection of individuals, the weaker our communities and democratic institutions become. Dressing up these decisions in the language of “choice” does not change this fact.

There is a note of hope in the Journal Gazette editorial. State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick said, “You know, we’re spending roughly $146 million on a program and not really reviewing it. That is irresponsible.” That’s a start at least. But, as my favorite Upton Sinclair quote reminds us, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” I don’t know enough about Superintendent McCormick to cast that aspersion on her, but there are members of the General Assembly of whom I am more skeptical. Judging from how voucher money is being spent, the rhetoric about providing “choice” to low income students at failing public schools seems to have been more in the nature of pretext than a serious policy goal.

Unfunded Bicentennial Projects

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Brian Slodysko, writing for the Associated Press, has an article entitled “Lawmakers Bail out Pence with $5.5 million for Bicentennial Projects” (h/t Indy Democrat Blog). According to the Slodysko article:

Indiana lawmakers are bailing out the state’s former governor, Vice President Mike Pence, after the Republican’s efforts to pay for two completed projects celebrating the state’s bicentennial foundered.

A provision tucked into the state’s next two-year budget, which was approved late last month by the GOP-dominated Legislature, sets aside $5.5 million to pay for an elaborate plaza constructed outside the Statehouse in Indianapolis and upgrades to the state library.

“They did the work, so somebody had to pay for it,” said Republican Sen. Luke Kenley, of Noblesville, who is one of the state’s lead budget writers.

Indiana’s Centennial featured, among other things, the development of a State Park system that has improved the lives of Hoosiers for the last century. At the time, Indiana was very proud (with some justification) of the state it had become and wanted to use its centennial to show off.

Our approach to the bicentennial suggests something of a sophomore slump. Ideological opposition to funding government operations or, really, to having a positive vision of what government can achieve was probably always going to result in an indifferent approach to bicentennial projects. In 2015, Sen. Kenley apparently questioned “if we could afford a bicentennial.” Pence suggested that we’d pay for projects by “leasing out 340 state-owned cellphone towers through a public-private partnership.” (Not quite that strength which in old days taunted rivals to “look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”)

So, we begrudgingly pay for a plaza and some upgrades to the library. It appears unlikely that other anticipated projects such as a new state archives building or an inn at northern Indiana’s Potato Creek State Park will get built any time soon. In our first century, we carved an impressive state out of the wilderness. Now, we act like we have to dig for change under the couch cushions to prevent our highways from crumbling.

94.27% of Voters Support West Lafayette School Funding Referendum

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I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was actively working on the school funding referendum for West Lafayette Schools. I’m not looking up dates, so I might get some of this slightly wrong, but in 2008 or thereabouts the State shifted the school funding model. Instead of coming mostly from local real estate taxes, most school general operations would be funded from the State’s general fund. This was partially in response to some more generalized property tax problems. (Here is a post from 2007 with some of the history to that date — quoting, in part, Everybody’s Favorite Economist ™ Larry DeBoer.) Almost immediately thereafter, the national economy hit the skids. The State cut school funding.

In 2012 (I believe), West Lafayette’s school superintendent, Rocky Killion, wrote a column entitled “The Demise of Indiana Public Education” that speaks to the history as it pertained to West Lafayette Schools up through 2010. This history was echoed in a December 2016 presentation (pdf) by Dr. DeBoer. The upshot was that over the course of about 25 years, just about every decision made by the General Assembly in terms of school funding, sometimes by design / sometimes by happenstance, worked against West Lafayette schools.

That said, the General Assembly did make available the referendum process as a tool to help West Lafayette right the ship. So, in 2010, there was a hard fought referendum battle on the question of whether to permit imposition of a local property tax increase of up to $0.43 per $100 of assessed valuation. A lot of money was spent on both sides. A group of local landlords were the primary opponents of the measure. But, after the dust settled, the community supported the measure by about 2 to 1. The money was well spent. West Lafayette has a lean administrative staff (probably too lean, truth be told) and our schools are consistently rated among the top (if not *the* top) school corporations in Indiana.  I suppose the argument could be made that we could make due without referendum money and settle for average performance. But, as a community, we embrace education in a big way.

The way the referendum law is set up, we had to renew the rate authority after seven years. Taking a look at the past budgeting, even though the school board had authority to impose a rate of up to $0.43, it had never gone above $0.37. So, when seeking to renew their authority, the school board lowered the requested authority from $0.43 down to $0.37. As some of you might remember, I lost my run for school board by 4 votes in the November 2016. One of my last acts as a lame-duck school board member was to vote to proceed with the renewal referendum. Then I joined the campaign to get the renewal passed. (I should note that the vote to proceed was unanimous and the member who replaced me was active in the referendum effort as well — so it would have proceeded regardless of my vote.)

I can’t say I campaigned that hard for my own school board seat. I should have done more. But, I had never campaigned for anything before (I had been appointed to fill out an existing member’s term) – and self-promotion isn’t something a Midwestern kid is raised to be comfortable with! The referendum campaign was very different. It was a lot more important than my board seat, I had just received a lesson on close campaigns (with the Presidential election — a lot of us are still receiving that lesson), and campaigning for an issue like this was much more in my comfort zone.

A pro-referendum PAC called “Friends of West Lafayette Schools” was formed with some local dignitaries at its head. (For example, former  West Lafayette mayor Sonya Margerum (Democrat) and former state representative Sue Scholer (Republican) were co-chairs.) Being a part of that effort was educational, gratifying, and enjoyable overall. I got to knock on doors with a number of people (including Sue)  — which turned out to be something I unexpectedly got a kick out of.  But my favorite co-campaigners were my kids. We had a data-entry app. I’d talk, and they’d thumb-in the results.

(One of the best moments was when Harper caught on to an oddity of my canvassing pitch: She pointed out that, when someone said they didn’t support the referendum, I didn’t mention where the voting locations were. When someone said they did support it, she says I probably mentioned the voting locations two or three times. Busted.)

I was able to meet or get to better know others involved in the campaign. Developing relationships is an underappreciated aspect of community efforts. The community is strengthened not just because of the goal that is the focus of the effort. It’s also strengthened by the act of working together with your friends and neighbors.

Ultimately, as the headline indicates, the school funding question passed in a landslide: 94.27% of those voting. Those are third-world dictator numbers! Of 2,233 votes cast, 2,105 were in support while 128 were against. I’m told that’s a state record of some sort. The strong support of the community is good to see, but it does strongly suggest that this effort was something of a waste: kind of make-work imposed by the state. There was no real appetite to eliminate the current tax rate. The burden is reasonable and the results of that funding have been very good.

But, that’s all the complaining I’ll do for now. The result was very positive, I made some new friendships & strengthened some old ones, and I got to walk around my community while chatting with my kids. I’m definitely putting this one in the win column.

And, in closing, I’m sharing a picture of a Kirk-gnome being attacked by a wee-Gorn that I saw in a rock garden while I was canvassing.

Kirk needed a little convincing to vote “yes” on the school funding question.

 

 

 

Why Was There a Civil War?

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I should probably just ignore Trump’s utterances as nothing more than noises coming out of his mouth hole, but this one was like catnip to me.

People don’t ask that question, but why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?

Slavery. The answer is slavery. Where can you compromise? You have, for example, the people in power in Mississippi declaring in their articles of secession:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

On the other side, you have those such as William Lloyd Garrison writing things like:

Assenting to the “self-evident truth” maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. In Park-street Church, on the Fourth of July, 1829, in an address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popluar but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this opportunity to make a full and unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardon of my God, of my country, and of my brethren the poor slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice and absurdity. A similar recantation, from my pen, was published in the Genius of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore, in September, 1829. My consicence in now satisfied.

I am aware, that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hand of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.

Meanwhile, federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act in the northern states was causing considerable consternation in those areas (even while the Southern states bemoaned insufficient federal enforcement in the northern states). In my bicentennial series, I passed along a few stories in Indiana during the 1850s. Lawyers in Indianapolis working for an escaped slave named “West,” turned to fiery invective when their legal arguments failed:

The fugitive act is a godless law, it is an unutterably infernal law and if its provisions are carried out, it will drag God Almighty from his throne, and inaugurate the reign of the devil upon the earth. There is not a doctrine taught by Jesus Christ which is not derided and trampled under foot by the law.

Following the unsuccessful defense, West was taken by train out of Indianapolis. “The crowds surrounding the train were ugly, and a great deal of security was required. There were at least two attempts to block or derail the train by blocking the tracks. The whole undertaking had cost West’s purported owner a great deal, and angry sentiment had been aroused in the people of Indianapolis.”

The question of whether people can be owned and their labor extracted by force for the benefit of their “owners” is not one that lends itself to compromise. That’s why there was a Civil War.

 

No Evidence Could Ever Exist That Would Change My Mind

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Sheila Kennedy and EMPAC have both written posts about an exchange Rep. Rokita had with a constituent on the subject of climate change that underscores why yesterday’s march in support of science is necessary. As Sheila quotes the constituent:

My question was “What evidence do you require in order to revise your opinion on climate change?”

His response was “No evidence could ever exist that would change my mind. It’s all Liberal science.”

Rokita’s response is the equivalent of a kid sticking his fingers in his ears and yelling, “LALALALA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!”

I’m not going to naively tell you that science is purely objective and tell you it can’t be liberal or conservative. In a strict sense, that’s true. The scientific method is one where you create hypothesis that is testable and falsifiable with results that are observable and repeatable. In that sense, science is not liberal or conservative. However, scientific results can be complicated and nuanced, and people can absolutely cherry pick results or interpret them with motivated reasoning.

But to say that all climate change science is liberal science or to flatly say that there is no evidence that could change his mind amounts to zealotry. I’ve come across this sort of reaction before — not with respect to science, but just with respect to having a discussion or argument generally. A person feels something is true, they don’t trust my arguments, but they can’t articulate a reason why my reasoning is flawed. So, they say — in effect — “I don’t care what you say, I believe what I believe.” They don’t trust themselves to distinguish good reasoning from flawed reasoning and don’t want to be lead astray from what they feel to be the “truth” by a bunch of fancy lawyer talk. So you get that sort of refusal to articulate a set of standards that would change his mind.

Seems to me that a population with a healthy grounding in the scientific method and its flaws would be better able to engage with scientific observations without fear that they were getting snookered by half-truths. Science education doesn’t, of course, solve all problems. EMPAC suggests that we might have an Upton Sinclair problem: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” But, perhaps a well-educated populace will recognize a public servant with an Upton Sinclair problem and adjust their vote accordingly.

Sheila’s post concludes:

As Neil DeGrasse Tyson likes to say, science is true whether we believe it or not. What he implies, but doesn’t say, is that rejecting reality is a prescription for disaster–and so is continuing to elect people who find science unacceptably “liberal.”

Or, as someone else succinctly and ominously put it, “Mother Nature bats last.”

<b>Update</b> Dave Bangert, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier has more on the exchange between Rep. Rokita and the constituent, Stacy Bogan.  Bangert quotes Bogan as asking, “What threshold of proof do you require in order to listen to scientists worldwide rather than listening to a handful of lawyers who are funded by fossil fuels?” Bangert then quotes Rokita’s response. The source of the quote isn’t clear from the context of Bangert’s column. So, I don’t know off hand if someone had a tape recorder running that was transcribed, Bangert is going from his own notes, or perhaps Rokita provided the information. It differs quite a bit from Sheila Kennedy’s quote of Bogan’s Facebook page recollecting the exchange.

Rokita is quoted as saying that we should rely on scientific methodology so we don’t have to trust the scientists themselves. But, insofar as it is responsive to Bogan’s question, the Rokita quote says:

[T]here’s all kind of questions in regard to the liberal scientists who come up with their research. . . . There is all kinds of discrepancy in the science that you quote. I’m not going to vote for policies that could disrupt our entire economy and do things just because of someone’s liberal hunches.

In response to a follow up question where Marc Hudson alludes to the idea that 99% of climate scientists are opposed to Rokita’s view of the matter and asks whether Rokita thinks that 99% of scientists are liberal, Rep. Rokita responded:

“Ninety-nine percent of the climate scientists haven’t been interviewed. Of the ones that have been polled, they’ve come up with their opinion. …

“I have looked into this issue. I have studied it. I’d be happy to be moved by evidence, but I’m not going to be moved by liberal opinion.”

So, we don’t have any kind of articulation of what sort of evidence Rep. Rokita would need in order to make the judgment that we need to take action to address climate change. We just know that he says he believes that there are “all kind of questions” and “all kinds of discrepancy” in the science done by liberal scientists whose liberal opinions will not move him.

United and Property

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There are a million hot takes on the United fiasco. Here’s a quick one from me.

United had legal rights concerning who was going to be transported on that airplane. The passenger they had hauled off by the police was presumably removed based on some variety of trespass.

It’s a good illustration that laws and, in particular, property laws are creatures of government, ultimately enforced by government employees — sometimes through use of force under color of law. “Small government” advocates who support strong enforcement of property rights aren’t really promoting “less” government so much as they are asking that government favor their priorities.

There is nothing bad or unusual about this, necessarily. Property rights are certainly a very valuable component of a functional society. Advocating that government favor your priorities is a core feature of democracy. But acknowledging that you’re not different from other members of the democracy promoting their priorities gets you into the messy business of having to argue about why your priorities are better than their priorities. The myth of small government or the conceit that property isn’t really government is an effort to let private property advocates avoid having to make that case.

100 Years Ago Today: Lafayette, We Are Here!

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America has joined forces with the Allied Powers, and what we have of blood and treasure are yours. Therefore it is that with loving pride we drape the colors in tribute of respect to this citizen of your great republic. And here and now, in the presence of the illustrious dead, we pledge our hearts and our honor in carrying this war to a successful issue. Lafayette, we are here!
—Col. Charles E. Stanton, July 4, 1917

Senate Joint Resolution declaring war with Germany

Stanton’s quote would come some months later, but a century ago, on April 6, 1917, the U.S. formally entered World War I on the side of the Allied Powers against Germany. The reference, of course, is to the Marquis de Lafayette, a General in the Revolutionary War and instrumental in obtaining the aid from France that secured our independence from the British. We were, in a sense, repaying the favor by coming to the aid of France in its hour of need.

World War I has been eclipsed in our public mind by World War II — which had more in the way of dramatic action and a better “good guys versus bad guys narrative.” But I tend to think that World War I is more instructive of how the world and the world at war really works. The mix of justified motives, crass self-interest, and inertial drift into horror is how wars seem to usually work. And it’s hard to overstate the horror of this war. War has always been plenty awful, but in World War I, we truly industrialized it. Human bodies were just fodder for the mechanical grinder. If you want an accessible but in depth historical overview of the War, I highly recommend Dan Carlin’s Blueprint for Armageddon series. His description of the hardships of trench warfare was particularly gripping.

World War I had been ravaging Europe since 1914. The U.S. had stayed out of the conflict. Public opinion was divided on which side it supported and whether to go to war or not. President Wilson campaigned for re-election in 1916 on the basis of having kept us out of war. But, as Germany became more desperate, it took measures that alienated the U.S. The 1915 sinking of the Lusitania, with U.S. passengers aboard, and the January 1917 Zimmerman telegram (promising Mexico its old U.S. territory if it went to war with the U.S. in the event that it broke its neutrality) are usually cited as instrumental in shifting public opinion and drawing the U.S. into the war.  It seems that Wilson also thought entering the war was necessary if the U.S. was to have a role in shaping the eventual peace. Compared to the other countries involved, the U.S. got off relatively lightly in terms of casualties, with 116,000 killed and 200,000  wounded. Entry into the war had a profound impact on the U.S. at home:

The home front saw a systematic mobilization of the entire population and the entire economy to produce the soldiers, food supplies, munitions, and money needed to win the war. Although the United States entered the war in 1917, there had been very little planning, or even recognition of the problems that the British and other Allies had to solve on their home fronts. As a result, the level of confusion was high in the first 12 months, then efficiency took control.[28]

Propaganda poster in World War I

The war came in the midst of the Progressive Era, when efficiency and expertise were highly valued. Therefore, the federal government set up a multitude of temporary agencies with 500,000 to 1,000,000 new employees to bring together the expertise necessary to redirect the economy into the production of munitions and food necessary for the war, as well as for propaganda purposes

In Indiana, and in the country generally, entry into World War I blunted the Progressive movement. Political interest was turned to campaigns for war support and “let loose a patriotic but intolerant spirit that demanded conformity and unanimity.”

Eugene Debs, the labor leader hailing from Terre Haute, was arrested on June 16, 1918 after he made a speech in Canton, Ohio, urging resistance to the draft. Charged with 10 counts of sedition, Debs was sentenced to 10 years. At his sentencing hearing, he made his famous statement:

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

President Wilson was happy to let him sit in jail, writing, “While the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man, Debs, stood behind the lines sniping, attacking, and denouncing them….This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration”

World War I gave a boost to the long active Prohibition movement. Among other things, grain used for brewing was needed for the troops, and a lot of the brewers were German. There was a lot of anti-German sentiment in the nation, generally, and in Indiana. (For example,Germany, Indiana in Fulton County was renamed “Pershing.”) Former governor Frank Hanly was active on the lecture circuit, advocating prohibition. In 1918, he railed against the brewers, saying Hoosier Brewers had “the arrogance of the Hun.”

In 1918, the State passed state-wide prohibition. And, in 1919, it ratified the Eighteenth Amendment.  Said Billy Sunday, famous evangelist and former baseball player at that time based in Winona Lake, Indiana:

The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon only be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and  our jails into storehouses and corn-cribs. Men will walk upright now; women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.

The jails did not close down, but many of the brewers did, among them Thieme and Wagner in Lafayette, Terre Haute Brewing Company, Madison Brewing Company, Peru Brewery and Tell City Brewing. There was a lot of corruption in Indiana, as elsewhere. As Prohibition wore on, the prohibitionists would make common cause with the Ku Klux Klan who shared their conservative politics and would use the machinery of the old White Cap organization, the Horse Thief Detective Association to enforce the prohibition laws.

Following the war which, itself, was hot on the heels of the Progressive movement and the Industrial Revolution, Americans generally and Hoosiers in particular would be bone weary of change raising the appeal of a return to “normalcy” and giving rise to the Klan who promised a return to the good old days.

But I suppose I digress. A century ago today, we were gearing up for war. Many of the most significant  consequences would be unintended.