The Liberal Mind

 I just finished reading through a three part series named Pilgrim's Egress, which is an unfolding of some of the events in Duke University's Political Science Professor, Michael Munger's, life.

Throughout this account, Professor Munger sheds light on the liberal mindset and some of its psychological makeup. This is important coming from Professor Munger, because he is speaking from the lions den itself. It is an undeniable fact that academia, especially in the social sciences, is dominated by liberals. So Professor Munger, being a Duke University Poli Sci professor, comes from a unique perspective of being right in the heart of liberalism.

I want to post some quotes that I thought were particularly telling. However, I hope this doesn't give the impression that this is all Pilgrim's Egress is about, it is not. It is a definitely worth reading and should be read in full/completely. Especially the section on his Cuba trip, and the Economic critique of that country. But for those who are just passing by, here are some interesting quotes,

You have to realize that the idea of political correctness, as opposed to its archenemy, political incorrectness, lies behind the bland smile of many otherwise decent liberals. There really is a right, and a wrong, view. Right is what they believe; wrong is anything else. If they are tolerant, it is the same kind of patronizing tolerance that keeps them from correcting one of their yowling whelps in a restaurant. They give the child time to work on his issues, and he’ll come to the right conclusion on his own. But don’t be confused—the tolerance the politically correct Left shows is not the kind of respect that implies, or even allows, an exchange of views. They are right, and you are wrong, and only an idiot would disagree. (You are the idiot, by the way.)

And what exactly is this view that completely unites liberals? Professor Munger explains,

The very idea of “political correctness,” then, is the product of two certainties that intertwine in the minds of the intellectual Left. The first certainty is the moral superiority of planned economies, and education systems, with equality of income and the absence of opportunity for social differentiation through effort or excellence.

The second is the inevitability of historical “progress” toward this goal, as societies evolve and improve. Together, these two certainties constitute a dynamic teleology, with both moral and historical force. To be politically correct, then, is not simply to pay lip service to current fads of speech or fashion, such as what name to call a minority group to avoid insulting its most sensitive members. Political correctness is the sense that there is a right side in history, and people on the other side are evil, delaying progress and misleading the gullible masses.

And some interesting insights into the psyche of liberals,

The academic Left needs to see itself as being outré, oppressed, the “Other” in the society in which it lives. If the Left thought of itself as conventional, and established, two things would happen. First, they would actually be responsible for the problems and inadequacies of American university education, rather than the rebels trying to make things better against overwhelming odds. Second, they would be overcome by unhappiness on a grand scale. Many people on the Left require a sense of “otherness” to be able to survive psychologically. Intellectual laziness and moral bankruptcy are not very attractive. Better to be beaten down and discriminated against by “the man.”

The academic Left, as a religious community, doesn’t like people at all. They have rarely spoken to, or met, anyone who doesn’t fully share their views. The series of educational and employment choices that lead to a career in the humanities or social sciences nearly guarantee a kind of isolation and groupthink that is self-perpetuating.

But Leftists often hate dealing with persons personally.

The idea of engaging with a nonacademic, someone unaware of Foucault’s genius, is very upsetting. Professors love the working class, as a big lumpen proletariat in need of assistance, by force if necessary, but professors find the idea of actually working appalling. Stands to reason: if you spend your time caterwauling about how deadening working must be, you have to believe that workers are the walking dead.

The idea of moral progress is irresistible, crack cocaine for the intellectual. Various projects, from the reform of institutions to reforming the minds of citizens, are constantly hatched and chattered about. In spite of the disasters that always result (Mao’s “Cultural Revolution,” Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society,” Pol Pot’s reeducation camps, and Hillary Clinton’s health care “reforms”), educated people are always convinced that things should be, and could be, better.

And why is it that the liberals keep holding onto beliefs that have repeatedly failed, time and time again, Professor Munger writes,

Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises said this really cool thing in Epistemological Problems of Economics. He said:

Scarcely anyone interests himself in social problems without being led to do so by the desire to see reforms enacted. In almost all cases, before anyone begins to study the science, he has already decided on definite reforms that he wants to put through. Only a few have the strength to accept the knowledge that these reforms are impracticable and to draw all the inferences from it. Most men endure the sacrifice of the intellect more easily than the sacrifice of their daydreams. They cannot bear that their utopias should run aground on the unalterable necessities of human existence. What they yearn for is another reality different from the one given in this world...They wish to be free of a universe of whose order they do not approve.

And that’s what socialist “theory” is: an alternative universe, a happy place where laws of economics (resources are scarce, producing things takes work, governments cannot create value), and possibly even physics (all roads should be downhill, because in my mind that would be better), don’t apply.

And that my friends is the central problem of why facts don't sway liberals. They keep pursuing this utopia that they will never find.

To summarize, I think Eric Hoffer said it the best when describing the intellectuals,

"A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed and wasted at will." (Originally posted: 07/25/2004)

Liberals View Of Minorities

 Walter Williams has an article detailing his experiences working with liberals, and how, in his opinion, they view minorities (he gives blacks as examples, but it could be applied to all minorities). He writes,

On occasion, when the question-and-answer session began, I'd tell the press, "You can treat me like a white person. Ask hard, penetrating questions." The remark often brought uncomfortable laughter, but I was dead serious. If there is one general characteristic of white liberals, it's their condescending and demeaning attitude toward blacks.

According to a Washington Times story (July 14, 2004), Democratic hopeful Sen. John Kerry, in a speech about education to a predominantly black audience, said that there are more blacks in prison than in college.

"That's unacceptable, but it's not their fault," he said. Do you think Kerry would also say that white inmates are faultless? Aside from Kerry being factually wrong about the black prison population vs. the black college population, his vision differs little from one that holds that blacks are a rudderless, victimized people who cannot control their destiny and whose best hope depends upon the benevolence of white people.

In a liberals mind, minorities are a group of people that can not make it on their own, a people that needs the assistant of liberals, through government, to come out of poverty. A group of people that should be graded on a whole different scale. Whether its affirmative action(handicap points?) or in behavioral problems, minorities are held to a lower standard.

The conservative on the other hand, views minorities quite differently, Walter Williams writes,

On July 23, President Bush gave a speech to the National Urban League. Unlike so many other white politicians speaking before predominantly black audiences, Bush didn't bother to pander and supplicate. He spoke of educational accountability and school choice and condemned high taxes, increased regulation and predatory lawsuits. He defended the institution of marriage. He didn't see blacks as victims in need of a paternalistic government to come to our rescue. He saw blacks needing what every American needs -- an environment where there's rule of law, limited government and equality before the law.

It's always been my contention that the conservative vision shows far greater respect for blacks than the liberal you-can't-make-it-without-us vision.

Same here Walter Williams. (Originally published: 08/04/2004)

Two Ways At Looking At The Same Thing - Slavery In America

 I remember when I was younger, my mom used to always tell me that there are three sides to every story: his, hers, and the truth. Throughout the years what she said has been shown to be true over and over again. There is no greater example of this than the history of slavery in the United States.

Nobody doubts that the United States, for a good portion of its history, participated in one of the worse acts in human history, slavery. This is the 'true' part of the story. This is the part that has the facts behind both his side of the story and her side of the story. However, how it gets interpreted, and what it says about the United States are two very different, I would even say, opposite conclusions.

You have 'her side' of the story, the one we're all familiar with, that says that this fact demonstrates that the United States is inherently racist. It claims that because of this part existed in the history of the United States, the members who trace their roots to those generations should be ashamed, some even go as far as saying that they should pay 'reparations' for what they have done. This past is forever engrained in her image, and determines how she looks at all aspects of the United States history and future.

Than you have 'his side' of the story that says that a part of the history that has been left out shows a greater picture. Yes, the United States participated in slavery, but the portion that is often left out is that so did practically every other race, religion and continent. Slavery has been a part of human history for as long as history has been recorded. And every group has participated in one way or the other. Christians, Atheists and Muslims all had a big hand in it, so did the vast majority of cultures. Bernard Lewis, emeritus professor at Princeton University, writes "The institution of slavery had indeed been practiced from time immemorial. It existed in all the ancient civilizations of Asia, Africa, Europe, and pre-Columbian America. It had been accepted and even endorsed by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as other religions of the world." In fact, the name slavery comes from the word Slavic, because of the frequent enslavement of Slavs in central Europe.

So it is not slavery that makes the United States unique, since it was actually practiced by every race and color and for every reason imagineable. In fact, a good portion of African slaves were sold to Europeans by Africans themselves. So undoubtedly, all people making the charge that the United States is racist have somewhere in their history, some roots in slavery, both being enslaved, and being the slave owners. So what is it that makes America unique, if it's not in having slaves? Thomas Sowell hints at it when he writes,

...nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century.

People of every race and color were enslaved -- and enslaved others. White people were still being bought and sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire, decades after American blacks were freed.

Everyone hated the idea of being a slave but few had any qualms about enslaving others. Slavery was just not an issue, not even among intellectuals, much less among political leaders, until the 18th century -- and then only in Western civilization.

Among those who turned against slavery in the 18th century were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and other American leaders. You could research all of 18th century Africa or Asia or the Middle East without finding any comparable rejection of slavery there.

Deciding that slavery was wrong was much easier than deciding what to do with millions of people from another continent, of another race, and without any historical preparation for living as free citizens in a society like that of the United States, where they were 20 percent of the total population.

It is clear from the private correspondence of Washington, Jefferson, and many others that their moral rejection of slavery was unambiguous, but the practical question of what to do now had them baffled. That would remain so for more than half a century.

In 1862, a ship carrying slaves from Africa to America, in violation of a ban on the international slave trade, was captured. The crew were imprisoned and the captain was hanged in the United States -- despite the fact that slavery itself was still legal in both Africa and the U.S. at the time.

What does this tell us? That enslaving people was considered an abomination but what to do with millions of people who were already enslaved was not equally clear.

That question was finally answered by a war in which one life was lost for every six people freed. Maybe that was the only answer. But don't pretend today that it was an easy answer -- or that those who grappled with the dilemma in the 18th century were some special villains, when most leaders and most people around the world at that time saw nothing wrong with slavery.

So the United States isn't unique in having slaves, the United States is unique in fighting against slavery. Yet little of this is mentioned in 'her side' of the story.

Furthermore, if you factor this into the fact that the United States is the most pro-immigration country in the world, you arrive at opposite conclusions than those arrived at by 'her side' of the story.

So the United States, when looking at the big picture, is not the 'racist' country it is made out to be, but the exact opposite. Compared to other countries in the world, it is one of the most open, unracist countries in the world. And its about time 'his side' of the story gets told more. (Originally published: 10/17/2004)

Paradigms Of Poverty

 If you put three economists in a room together one liberal, one conservative, and one libertarian and discussed minority poverty and its causes, how would the discussion unfold? After many years of reading about this topic from various sources, I have come to believe that the break down would look something like this.

The liberal economist would focus more on external causes - institutional racism, racism in general, and the overall affects society has on those in poverty. The solutions to poverty should be immediate and tend to be monetary in nature - so you get welfare, government programs, and lower taxes for the poor.

The conservative economist would focus more on internal causes - the breakdown of the family, the divorce rate, drugs, and overall cultural influences. The solutions to poverty should be long term and tend to focus more on changing the culture - so you get things like Bush's faith based initiatives, changes in the welfare system so that it doesn't reward divorce and occasionally something as creative as this.

Thomas Sowell summarizes the conservative economist well when he wrote:

The greatest dilemma in attempts to raise ethnic minority income is that those methods which have historically proved successful — self-reliance, work skills, education, business, experience — are all slow developing, while those methods which are direct and immediate — job quotas, charity, subsidies, preferential treatment — tend to undermine self-reliance and pride of achievement in the long run.

With this in mind, it is easy to see why many conservatives dislike affirmative action.

Up until now the conservative and liberal economist both had a place for government in solving the problems of poverty - whether the problem was internal or external, racial or cultural, government played a role. The libertarian, on the other hand, would have none of this. The libertarian solution to poverty would involve much less (many would argue none at all) government assistance. Though the solution (significantly limited or no government interference) is the same among libertarians, they have strong disagreements among themselves as to why that solution is optimal.

Soft libertarians will argue along the same lines as conservatives, stating that government interference is innately inferior to a free market at solving problems since no matter how you structure the assistance, it will always have a negative affect on culture and promote destructive behavior. So in the end, government assistance is like a dog chasing its tail only that with each spin of the dog the poverty gets worse and the costs more expensive. In addition, a soft libertarian sees a strong state and a strong family as incompatible. If you increase one, you will reduce the other.

For example, Arnold Kling, writes:

Most Western nations have created a cycle of dependency with respect to single motherhood. Government programs, such as welfare payments or taxpayer-funded child care, are developed to "support" single mothers. This in turn encourages more single motherhood. This enlarges the constituency for such support programs, leading politicians to broaden such programs.

He quotes approvingly, this post from Phillip Swagel on social security:

"It is convenient for us who are young to forget about old people if their financial needs are taken care of...But elderly people want and need attention from their children and grandchildren...This, then, is the ultimate trouble with the government spending other people's money for the support of one part of the family. Other people's money relieves us from some of the personal responsibility for the other members of our family. Parents are less accountable for instilling good work habits, encouraging work effort...Young people are less accountable for the care of particular old people, since they are forcibly taxed to support old people in general." (p. 116-117)

Since the family is better suited to deal with these problems than an impersonal state, in the long run this results in a reduction in efficiency and increase, not decrease, in poverty. It is this aspect of government interference that soft libertarians are attune to. For examples of solutions to poverty proposed by soft libertarians read this, this and this.

Hard libertarians, on the other hand, are in a category all on their own. Like libertarians in general, they share the belief that government has a very limited role to play in solving poverty but they take it one step further - in addition to cultural forces, they include IQ. From my reading of the literature, this breaks down into two somewhat independent parts. The first is the strong correlation IQ has with success. The second is the link between IQ and race.

The first point, the strong correlation of IQ with success, seems to be generally accepted. For example, Greg Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard comments on a paper discussing this very thing:

Among a group of adopted sons, which is a better predictor of high education and high earnings?

(a) Having highly educated biological parents.
(b) Having highly educated adoptive parents.

According to results in a new study of Swedish data from Anders Björklund, Markus Jäntti, and Gary Solon, the answer is (a).

The results in this paper seem broadly consistent with those of Dartmouth economist Bruce Sacerdote, who examines a completely different data set in which adopted children were assigned randomly to parents.

In both papers, nature is stronger than nurture for determining the educational attainment of adopted children, although both nature and nurture have some role. And in both papers, nature completely dominates over nurture for determining income.

Nobody is arguing that IQ is everything, only that it is the strongest predictor of income, much more so than any other single data point you can provide. Hard libertarians will take this one step further and connect it to race, arguing that poverty in the United States, to a large degree, mirrors differences in IQ. For example, why are blacks and latinos disproportionately represented at the lower income levels? Hard libertarians would argue that it's because blacks and latinos are disproportionately represented at the lower end of the IQ spectrum. For more on this and how it influences the role of government programs, see this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

The last link discusses what impact IQ should have on government programs. The link states:

Does it matter that IQ matters? Of course! An investment in education that looks extremely profitable if you don't control for IQ could easily be a big waste of money. The reason: If you don't control for IQ, you are giving education a lot more credit than it deserves. To say "Let's focus on the things we can change" dodges the hard truth: After you adjust for what you can't change, the things that you can change may give you very little bang for your buck.

Thus, IQ is highly policy-relevant after all. The left-wing ideologues who damn anyone who even thinks the letters "IQ" are actually on to something: IQ research does turn out to be a rationale for "right-wing" laissez-faire policies. The more IQ matters, the more likely it becomes that existing government policies are a waste of money - and that you would get a bigger payoff by doing less - or maybe nothing at all.

There are several arguments, convincing IMHO, one can make against hard libertarians (Thomas Sowell, most notably, making the strongest one, see here) though admittedly I have not spent much time looking closely at the disagreements (yet). My point here is not to say who is right and who is wrong, to defend one and criticize the other, only to outline, as best as I can, what the differences are in assumptions between the various schools of thought. For even when you get all of the economics correct, the initial preferences are still very different and shape a good portion of the debate. (Originally published: (11/30/2007)

The Clinton Years vs The Bush Years - A Pet Peeve I have

 Casey B. Mulligan, professor of economics at the University of Chicago, made a comment that he should know is disingenuous, he wrote:

the "big spending Democrat" stereotype is incorrect -- government spending / GDP fell under Clinton and increased under Bush.

This comparison, used to argue that when it comes to spending there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats,  is made often, both in the blogosphere and by academics who should know better. The main problem I have with it is that it is not comparing apples to apples.  Milton Friedman argued that the best form of government, from a small government and low spending perspective, is a Democratic president and a Republican Congress, where Republicans control the spending (congress), and Democrats control foreign policy - precisely what we had under Bill Clinton. The worst form of government is when the same party controls the presidency and congress - precisely what we had under George W Bush.

In other words, you are comparing arguably the best scenario under a Democratic president with the worst scenario under a Republican president - of course they are going to be alot closer than what they really are. Don't get me wrong: I am not arguing that Republicans are true fiscal conservatives, no, I am arguing that the gulf between the two is larger than what these "Clinton years vs Bush years" argument would lead you to believe.

The difference between the two is even larger when you compare the kind of spending each does: Republicans tend to overspend on wars while Democrats tend to overspend on entitlements. Wars are temporary, they are one time events that come to an end, whereas entitlements are forever and worst of all, they get more inefficient and expensive with time. Take FDR and LBJ - both were involved in wars and both created entitlements, FDR with World War II and social-security and LBJ with the Vietnam war and medicare. Yet today we worry about the growing costs of social-security and medicare while the financial costs of World War II and Vietnam, though expensive at the time, are now but forgotten.

And Bill Clinton would not have been any different, had he had more control of congress, Matthew Yglesias explains:

If the health care bill that the Clinton administration authored, pushed for, and staked its presidency on had passed you would say that FDR, LBJ, and Bill Clinton were the three main architects of the modern welfare state. Because the bill didn’t pass, the institutional legacy of the Clinton years is considerably more moderate than that and the Clinton administration is instead remembered for its responsible stewardship of national affairs. But that’s because congress blocked the bill not because of Clinton’s moderation.

That was the Republican controlled (for the first time in ~50 years) congress that blocked the bill.

A better comparison is between the Bush years and the Obama years - but given the fact that in Obama's first 100 days in office, he's already proposed spending more than Bush spent in his entire 8 years, including both wars, its a strong argument that there really is a difference between the two parties. Especially considering that most of Obama's spending comes in the form of very expensive entitlements - entitlements that Obama is hoping will last forever.

You can argue that entitlements are worth the costs, that is an argument for another day, but you can't make the argument that the spending is the same between the two parties. (Originally Posted: 6/5/2009)

The Problems With Pell Grants

I admit it, I get uneasy feelings when people congratulate Obama for increasing Pell Grants. I don't see it as the universal positive that many others do. For three reasons.

First, Pell grants are politically cheap. Increasing funding for Pell grants takes little courage and comes with no political cost. Who disagrees with more funding for poor people to go to college? Certainly only the heartless. Whats more, it doesn't come out of Obama's own pocket, it's after all, the tax payers money. And what politician doesn't like being generous with other peoples money?

Second, it can make the problem worse. Richard Vedder, director of the Center of College Affordability and Productivity and professor of economics at Ohio University explains:

Work done at my research center reinforces findings of others that exploding student loan programs have contributed to higher tuition charges, and if Pell Grants grow more inclusive and generous, the same effect will occur with them...

The demand for higher education grows with rising federal financial assistance, but the supply grows less rapidly, pushing up prices (tuition fees). Supply is comparatively rigid because the so-called best schools attain their lofty reputation by turning away customers: college rankings are enhanced by taking very qualified bright kids who likely will graduate (and are disproportionately affluent). Dropping money out of airplanes over the houses of college students (or its equivalent) is not the solution.

Normally, this shouldn't be a difficult concept to understand. After all, who doubts that the spread of low cost mortgage financing helped fuel the housing bubble? Its the same concept here: low cost Pell grants, and especially low cost student loans, are a primary cause of University tuition increases. It's standard subsidy economics.

Third, it crowds out the private sector. The more the government funds it the less private donors will feel the need to, and thus, you replace private charity with public charity. And because public charity is less scrupulous than private charity, you make the grants less efficient. Which helps to explain why most pell grant recipients do not earn a college degree.

Arthur M. Hauptman, from the Center For American progress, explains:

Instead, we should worry more that increases in Pell Grants may lead institutions to reduce the amount of discounts they would otherwise have provided to the recipients, who are from poor families, and move the aid these students would have received to others. This possibility of a substitution effect is supported by the data showing that public and private institutions are now more likely to provide more aid to more middle-income students than low-income students.

In short, I see Pell grants as a way for Obama to escape real education reform by throwing us crumbs, just enough for us to shut up, and many do.

For more on this see this see here and here. (Originally published: 2/10/2010)

The Leftist View Of The World

Readers of my blog, especially those who comment frequently, know my good friend Jon. He's a recent convert to the left and believes in it passionately. A common theme of his world view, and those on the left in general, is the tug of war between the rich and the poor. The powerful and the non-powerful. The politically connected and the those with no political power. Basically the heart of leftist's worldview revolves around this paradigm.

Every political fight, every economic decision and every current event is filtered through this prism.  Since I consider Jon a smart, honest and sincere person, I have been trying to understand how he could be so enthralled by such a political philosophy. I try to read, watch and listen to everything he asks me to. And a big part of that is Chomsky and his writings. So I go over to Chomsky's site and this is the latest article of his, on the Winsconsin union political fight:

As working people won basic rights in the 1930s, business leaders warned of "the hazard facing industrialists in the rising political power of the masses," and called for urgent measures to beat back the threat, according to scholar Alex Carey in "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy." They understood as well as Mubarak did that unions are a leading force in advancing rights and democracy. In the U.S., unions are the primary counterforce to corporate tyranny.

By now, U.S. private-sector unions have been severely weakened. Public-sector unions have recently come under sharp attack from right-wing opponents who cynically exploit the economic crisis caused primarily by the finance industry and its associates in government.

Popular anger must be diverted from the agents of the financial crisis, who are profiting from it; for example, Goldman Sachs, "on track to pay out $17.5 billion in compensation for last year," the business press reports, with CEO Lloyd Blankfein receiving a $12.6 million bonus while his base salary more than triples to $2 million.

Instead, propaganda must blame teachers and other public-sector workers with their fat salaries and exorbitant pensions -- all a fabrication, on a model that is all too familiar. To Wisconsin's Gov. Scott Walker, to other Republicans and many Democrats, the slogan is that austerity must be shared -- with some notable exceptions.

The propaganda has been fairly effective. Walker can count on at least a large minority to support his brazen effort to destroy the unions. Invoking the deficit as an excuse is pure farce.

In different ways, the fate of democracy is at stake in Madison, Wis., no less than it is in Tahrir Square.

Lost on Chomsky, and which bears no mention in this article or other writings, is an investigation into whether or not the claims of opponents of teachers unions are actually true. This is typical Chomsky. He doesn't care about declared motives. There has to be other reasons, and those reasons have to fit into a powerful vs nonpower paradigm. Anything else is not even worth investigating.

Ignored by Chomsky then is the long trail of writings and arguments that opponents of teachers unions have been making. Opponents of teachers unions make the claim (among others) that the teachers union stifles reform and entrenches a low quality public education system. One that ultimately harms the poor most, especially minorities.

The proof of this is so one sided that even traditional supporters of unions have a hard time making a compelling case in their defense and instead resort to distortions and misleading claims (see here for an example). But where is Chomsky on this issue? Nowhere. He is so blinded by his worldview, that anything contrary to union power is ipso facto a power grab against the 'poor and powerless' in favor of the 'rich and powerful'.

I bet you can read all of Chomsky's material, all of his writings, videos and historical accounts and you will not find anything on say, the unions role in entrenching racism (pdf), or vast corruption throughout history, or more currently, the teachers unions negative affect on public education - his is a simple storyline, unions and 'workers' are good, rich people are evil.

This is typical of Chomsky and leftist in general. Their simplistic paradigm is so ingrained in them that they often cannot see the forest for the trees, and miss the fact that it is the students and poor minorities in particular, who are the powerless in need of defending, and it is the teachers unions and their political allies that are the powerful. (Originally published: 5/7/2011)

Liberal Vs Conservative: Approach To Minority Problems

Friday's example of the ugly side of liberalism reminded me of why I am a conservative and not a liberal.

There are two necessary parts to succeed in anything. There is the internal element and the external element. The internal element involves the personality traits necessary to succeed. The personality traits that help you stay up late at night when necessary to pass a certain test, the personality traits that teach you a good work ethic necessary to survive and move ahead in any field, and the side that pushes you to keep going and overcome obstacles when they arise. But than there is also the external element. One could work as hard as one can, and have all the personality traits necessary to succeed, but if there are no opportunities because of your race, or if your financial circumstances limits your options, you are also limited in how far you can go economically.

In my opinion, liberals seem to focus on the external forces involved in getting minorities out of the ghetto. They will push for affirmative action, they will push to get more government money for student loans, they will fight to make college cheaper, they will create minority business networks to help promote minority-based businesses. They will put a strong emphasis on the racial barriers to minorities prosperity.

Liberals will also push for social programs that they think will help minorities and depend on the government to implement those programs. They also tend to promote increased government funding of those social programs as the way to solve minority problems.

In other words, liberals' focus is on the external factors and using the government to implement solutions.

Conservatives, on the other hand, will address the internal factors more. They will stress hard work and dedication, personal responsibility and the need to learn the tools necessary to succeed in life. Conservatives will advocate for crime laws that remove criminals off the streets; they will encourage and assist faith based initiatives that give inner city Churches the tools necessary to solve the economic and cultural problems from the inside. They promote solutions that encourage couples to stay married and help reduce out of wedlock births.

Conservatives will also push for programs that don't compromise the above beliefs. Conservatives will emphasize free market solutions to the problem of minorities, and tend to shy away from government solutions. They will push for the privatization of social security, thereby giving those who choose to use them the opportunity to take control of their own economic destiny. They will push for non-race specific solutions that will help minority businesses succeed. Things like tax breaks for small business, a reduction in regulations that hamper business growth. Last, but certainly not least, conservatives will push for a free-market solution to tackle the failing problems of our public schools. They will push for vouchers, a solution that gives parents of children in failing schools the economic choice necessary to send their kids to the school of their choice, this in turn indirectly puts much needed pressure on schools to succeed.

In other words, conservatives focus on internal forces and tend to rely on free-market, non-government methods to implement their solutions.

I am not saying that these are mutually exclusive lines, or that supporting one political philosophy implies you don't support the solutions of the other political philosophy. My point here is to show the difference in emphasis, not in specific applications.

After reading this, one will naturally ask the obvious question, which side is better? If one's ultimate goal is to get minorities out of the ghetto and towards a prosperous living, which side is better at doing it? I would answer that it depends more on the circumstances of the time than anything else.

To succeed you need both elements. You need the internal and the external. If any one is lacking, you will not be able to succeed.

So both the conservative and the liberal emphasis are necessary. However, I think that depending on the circumstances of the time, one should be emphasized over the other. I agree that there was a time when combating racism was necessary and perhaps affirmative action was needed back then. The country certainly needed to be made aware of the fact that many minorities were not succeeding because of the external limitations imposed on them. But I believe that a lot has changed since then. Racism and the external limitations on minorities are, for the most part, a thing of the past. I am not saying that racism has ceased to exist, only that it doesn't have the power that it did before. There isn't enough racism to stop you from succeeding in life. In addition, there is more than enough college funding going around than most people are aware of. Nowadays, there are so many options available to poor people wanting to go to college and there aren't enough people taking advantage of that. I know a Hispanic female friend of mine that grew up living in a trailer, when she finished high school she won a grant from the Bill Gates foundation that completely paid for her education at USC. The grant paid for her books, education tuition, and gave her money for rent, a computer and transportation. Could you have imagined anything close to that 30 years ago?

I am not arguing that more progress shouldn't be made with regards to external factors (although I'd disagree with how liberals go about it), but rather that the focus needs to be on internal factors.

Today, the primary problems limiting minorities from getting out of the ghetto are not racial, they are not financial, they are cultural. When you have a high percentage of minorities growing up in single family homes, or a high crime area that hampers economic innovation, or a culture that frowns on academic success, or a public school system that doesn't give minorities the resources necessary to succeed, the primary problems have ceased to be external, and are now internal.

In other words, minorities now need to hear more Bill Cosby and less Jesse Jackson.

So not only do I believe that the emphasis should be on the internal, but I believe liberals have drifted so far to the external that they have started to hurt minorities.

Liberals' overemphasis on race leads them to be over sensitive on that issue. I have a very liberal Hispanic friend that I was discussing the problem concerning the lack of Hispanics in the sciences, something that is of particular concern to me. And it was like pulling teeth to get her to even admit there is a problem, as if my bringing it up was the result of some racism on my part. I could only imagine what her response would have been if I had been a white person, as opposed to Hispanic. Many times, if you talk to a liberal minority and you happen to be white, many of them will not even listen to what you have to say, simply because you are white or don't have the same poverty upbringing that they have. In addition, liberals have become so sensitive on racial issues that it becomes very difficult to even talk about cultural problems without the fear of being branded a racist.

In addition, liberals' overemphasis on race issues leads them to be very divisive - emphasizing the difference among Americans instead of the similarities. For example, Mexican-American minorities will quibble endlessly about the proper term that defines us, is it Latino? Is it Hispanic? Or, is it even Chicano? Some take this argument so seriously that they have publicly stated that they will not even view or address my solution to failing public schools (vouchers) because I have decided to call myself Hispanic. When your ideology drives you to stress the importance of whether to call yourself a Hispanic over the problem of failing schools, I think it's fair to say you need to re-evaluate your priorities.

Furthermore, contrary to common belief among liberals, social programs don't have the wonderful track record that liberals seem to think they do. Some argue that using the government to promote social programs only divides and actually makes matters worse.

Than there is the belief that social programs when done through government do not come free. They have trade offs like everything else in economics. The bigger you make government, the more you tax citizens, the less efficient the economy runs, and the less economic mobility is available to those at the bottom.

Maybe I am lucky to have entered politics at such a young age. To have entered politics without experiencing the civil rights era of the 1960's and 70's. To have only read about the great Martin Luther King Jr, the great civil rights fighters of that time instead of going through the struggles with them. Maybe the lack of personal experience in that area has allowed me to enter politics with no historical bias, only judging what I see now.


To the liberals out there reading this, I only have one thing to say. You can disagree with my conclusion, you can critique my beliefs, and you can certainly offer differing solutions. All of that is open to and should be debated. But do not question my sincerity or my devotion to my fellow minorities in the ghetto. Simply because someone doesn't agree with your solutions, doesn't mean they don't care for minorities and don't wish them the best as well. It is time we move past all the rhetoric and start talking about what does or doesn't work. (Published: 11/22/2004)