Peter Levine
- students as part of the accountability puzzle September 3, 2010
- the value-added debate in education policy September 1, 2010
- Jonathan Lethem, A Fortress of Solitude September 1, 2010
- what happened to the new Obama voters? August 31, 2010
Archive for January 2010
I’m currently taking a class called Law and Morality, part of the required course work for the government honors program I’m enrolled in. We’re reading a lot of Aquinas (Treatise on Law) and were asked to develop our own conception of what an unjust law is and to give an example. So what follows is exactly that. I try to make a case for progressive taxation as an unjust law.
I believe civil laws are instituted by a consensual authority among men to protect individual liberty and promote the general progress and well being of society. Some laws are informed by what many call natural law–what I believe to be a timeless, yet evolving conception of good and evil that is woven into the fabric of society, not necessarily through a divine or innate means, but through discovery and enlightenment. Other laws are derived from reason for secondary purposes that, in a practical sense, allow the legal system to achieve its aforementioned primary purpose. Because man is imperfect, so too are his laws. I believe the worst of these imperfect laws to be either misguided, meaning they do not serve a legitimate end, or unjust, meaning they serve an outright illegitimate end. The distinctions between the two are extent to which harm is caused and the extent to which society can readily self-correct.
Today, the US Senate failed to achieve the 60 votes necessary to pass a bipartisan commission to address our nation’s fiscal crisis. Pure politics stood in the way on this issue, like every other. The debate on the commission was symptomatic of what is wrong with Washington: hyper-partisanship and heedless self-interest. Lindsey Graham, one of the few national leaders our Senate has, supported the commission and told POLITICO:
“I’m willing to try anything because I’m desperate,” Graham said in an interview. “Immigration: hard, tried, it went nowhere. Social Security: hard, tried, it went nowhere. Health care: hard, tried, went nowhere. We’re running out of opportunities to try hard and go nowhere. Time is not on our side.”
It should be of concern to every American that our government is broken. We have no ability to address the issues we face. Washington, and the idelouges that feed its incompetence, just don”t get it. As Senator Graham said, time is working against us; our problems are compounding.
We need a big jolt to the system. Something. Somehow.
Here is last year’s winner:
Democracy is – Philosophical ideas, Ideologies, Cultural Norms and Aesthetic values.
I confess: I have not texted a $10 donation to Haiti, and I don’t plan on it. This is because I’ve been perplexed by two things:
1. Why does everyone care so much? Seriously. Why has the whole country gone bonkers over this particular earthquake when human suffering persists on a daily basis all across the globe? We have such an odd tendency to freak out over things that culminate in a single event. Take airplane crashes for example. The tens of thousands of people who die each year because of drunk drivers get much less attention. So when it came to Haiti, I couldn’t help but think to another human tragedy: Malaria. Over 1,000,000 people, mostly children, die each year because of the diesease, one that (unlike the earthquake) is completely preventable and treatable. No one should die from it because we can beat it with enough resources. Yet people still are…maybe because they all don’t die on a single, tragic day? I don’t really want to participate in this irrational hysteria surrounding Haiti, if only to make this point and provoke some thought by others.
2. Why should I give $10? Millions of dollars have already been raised by non-stop press, telethons, etc. All the attention is going into disaster relief, and little attention on long-term recovery. $10 donations to the Red Cross are not going to help much in long-term recovery. How about I pledge to remember Haiti in a year when everyone else (including the conceited Hollywood humanitarians) forgets about? In addition, I’d rather–and did–give a donation to a cause that no one seems to care about soley because it does not make for sensational television. I understand it is not a zero sum game in general in what we give to and not, but for me (someone with limited time and money) it is. If all of America is giving millions of dollars to Haiti, great! That means I don’t have to, and I can continue to focus on other issues.
I love making videos!
