Showing papers in "Policy Review in 1993"

Casting a Wider Net: Religious Conservatives Move beyond Abortion and Homosexuality

Abstract: During Adlai Stevenson's second losing campaign for the presidency in 1956, Harry Truman met with the embattled candidate to offer him some advice. Mr. Stevenson, then badly trailing Dwight Eisenhower, asked the former president what he was doing wrong. Mr. Truman led him to the window, pointed to a man walking down the street below, and said, "What you've got to do is figure out how to reach that man." This same dilemma now faces the pro-family movement. Though blessed with talented leadership, strong grassroots support, and enormous financial resources, it has not yet completely connected its agenda with average voters. The pro-family movement still has limited appeal even among the 40 million voters who attend church frequently, identify themselves as evangelicals or orthodox Roman Catholics, and consider themselves traditionalists on cultural issues. Developing a Broad Agenda There are many explanations for this political disconnect. One is a basic breakdown in communication. In his incisive critique of the "family values" theme of the 1992 campaign, pollster Richard Wirthlin points out that political communication proceeds on three levels: policy, personal benefit, and values. The pro-family movement's political rhetoric has often been policy-thin and value-laden, leaving many voters tuned out. Values are important to voters, but values alone are not enough. The successful candidate or movement must promote policies that personally benefit voters - such as tax cuts, education vouchers, higher wages, or retirement benefits. Without specific policies designed to benefit families and children, appeals to family values or America's Judeo-Christian heritage will fall on deaf ears. A related shortcoming is that pro-family activists have built their movement around personalities rather than policies. Visible religious figures play a vital role in building grassroots membership and generating financial support. But their personal charisma, while an important asset, is no substitute for good policy. Prominent personalities are always critical in building social movements. Labor unions were dominated in the 1940s and 1960s by controversial figures like John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers or Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters. Today, however, labor organizers are more likely to be lower-profile political professionals. The same can be said of the civil-rights movement, which no longer has one dominant figure such as Martin Luther King. A similar transition will probably occur in the pro-family movement during the coming decade. The pro-family movement in recent years has put too much emphasis on political solutions to America's social problems. Political involvement alone will not bring about cultural renewal: it is also important for the faith community to feed the hungry, teach the illiterate, provide loving care for unwed mothers, bring together families, and reawaken the spiritual life of criminals. These require cultural institutions more than election-day mobilization. The most urgent challenge for pro-family conservatives is to develop a broader issues agenda. The pro-family movement has limited its effectiveness by concentrating disproportionately on issues such as abortion and homosexuality. These are vital moral issues, and must remain an important part of the message. To win at the ballot box and in the court of public opinion, however, the pro-family movement must speak to the concerns of average voters in the areas of taxes, crime, government waste, health care, and financial security. Attracting a Majority of Voters The issues of abortion and gay rights have been important in attracting activists and building coalitions. When tactics become ends in themselves, however, social movements falter. Abolitionists spent decades in the early 19th century petitioning Congress in vain for antislavery laws before expanding their focus to the free soil movement. …

Failing Grade for Federal Aid: Is It Time to Close the Book on Chapter 1?.

Abstract: If Chapter 1 were a business, it would be in Chapter 11. Over the last 28 years, the federally funded compensatory education program has spent $135 billion (in constant 1992-93 dollars) to boost the academic skills of disadvantaged children, with little to show for it. The only longitudinal study ever done on the program -- tracking annual test scores for Chapter 1 students -- found that student achievement is deteriorating, not improving. A study published earlier this year by the Department of Education called Reinventing Chapter 1 , found that the achievement level of Chapter 1 students has fallen for all groups tested except seventh-grade reading. With 70 percent of the program's students in the elementary grades, the results of Chapter 1 elementary school students are particularly disappointing. From the third grade to the fourth grade, the achievement level of the average Chapter 1 student fell from 26th percentile to the 23rd percentile in reading. In math, scores dropped from the 27th percentile to the 24th. In a recent article in U.S. World and News Report, Mary Jean Letendre, director of Compensatory Education for the Department of Education, conceded the program's failure to produce results, saying that if Chapter 1's performance were displayed on a heart monitor, "We'd either pull the plug or get out the clappers." Despite these shortcomings, Chapter 1 is a politically sacrosanct program. The most recent reauthorization in 1988 passed with only one dissenting vote in both the House (401-1) and the Senate (97-1). Until this reauthorization -- after 23 years and $100 billion -- there was no mechanism required to monitor the program's performance. And even with the damning results of the Department of Education study, politicans and the media have largely ignored the program. Moreover, it gets a mere three sentences in the 1,600-page 1993 Federal Budget, despite being the largest line-item in the Department of Education's budget, accounting for 20 percent of its spending every year. In 1993, Chapter 1 received nearly $7 billion, more than twice the amount of Head Start. Yale professor and Head Start co-founder Edward Zigler has been one of the few in the education field to publicize Chapter 1's lack of success. In a recent Business Week article, Zigler wrote, "While there is not much data on the effectiveness of Chapter 1, policymakers have ignored the results that do exist, namely that participating students do not exhibit meaningful improvements in achievement levels." The two major evaluations of the program have been sharply critical. The Commission on Chapter 1, funded by the Edna McConnell Clark and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur foundations, produced a study that criticized: "a continued focus on remediation ... methods for evaluating that are antiquated (and downright harmful)"; and "a perverse incentive structure that discourages schools from working to improve student performance." The Reinventing Chapter 1 review panel joined Zigler in criticizing the program's sad legacy of complacency and ineffectiveness. "The highest de facto aim of the Chapter 1 program is to achieve low- level basic skills, [but] the program is considered a success if children do not fall further behind." Thus, not only has Chapter 1 done little to improve student achievement, in some cases it may even be preventing disadvantaged students from catching up. Great (Society) Expectations The program began in 1965, when Congress created "Title I -- Better Schooling for Educationally Deprived Children" as a part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The program was formed as a part of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, and was established to help disadvantaged school-age children catch up with their peers. To receive Chapter 1 services, a child must be disadvantaged both financially (usually defined by receiving free or reduced-price lunch) and educationally, defined in the statute as "children whose educational attainment is below the level that is usually appropriate for children of their age. …

Peacekeeping Is Hell: America Unlearns the Lessons of Vietnam

Abstract: On February 26, 1991, when I was one of the very first American ground troops to encounter Iraqi Republican Guard tanks, I was glad that there was an "American way of war." At about 4 P.M. that day, my Bradley fighting vehicle and some 20 other Bradleys and tanks crested a slight rise and came face to face with the enemy's elite. In the ensuing battle, now known as the Battle of the 73 Easting, we were fortunate to have only one soldier killed and several wounded as we destroyed an enemy battalion. We were able to keep our casualties to a minimum because our nation had asked us to fight in a manner which favored us. General Colin Powell told us to "cut [the enemy] off and kill it." We knew what that meant, and we did the job. We took full advantage of our aggressive doctrine, our military proficiency, and our overwhelming technological superiority as we completely overpowered the enemy. Hard Lessons of Limited Wars Unfortunately, this emphasis on decisively achieving clear objectives is being ignored by the Clinton administration. The president is committing U.S. troops to United Nations peacekeeping missions in the Balkans and Somalia in which their great skills are handicapped and in which the objectives are uncertain. UN commanders usually have little experience using troops for decisive combat, and UN peacekeeping missions typically operate under self- imposed limits which endanger the force and limit its effectiveness. By submitting to United Nations command, the United States can expect extended, dangerous, and expensive operations that will steadily produce casualties and rarely produce results. Like the Korea stalemate before it, the Vietnam War revealed the tragic limitations of a strategy of limited war with no definitive objectives. President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara sought to apply force in carefully measured packets as a "signaling device." The United States applied military pressure incrementally, and mostly in punitive response to initiatives by the enemy. Restricting both its objectives and its means, the United States decided not to stage a decisive operation, air or ground, against North Vietnam. The emphasis on controlling the application of force, as former Department of Defense official Stephen Rosen pointed out, "quickly produced a tendency to choose plans that were controllable over plans that would be militarily successful." A conscious decision was made to fight a war of attrition as opposed to a war of annihilation. The result was a costly and largely wasted effort that left a heavy burden on the professional military. In analyzing their Vietnam failures, the services decided that they should never again deprive themselves of the early effect of overwhelming force. They insisted that they should be given objectives that were distinct and readily apparent, and could lead to a decisive and conclusive political goal. They demanded that they be allowed to fight within parameters that would allow them to keep the initiative and set the terms of battle to their advantage. Most of all, they maintained that they should not be forced to operate under self-imposed limits that so severely handicapped their effectiveness as to cede every advantage to the enemy. The American Way to Fight The Gulf War dramatically vindicated these principles. President Bush set a goal that was clearly defined, decisive, and militarily attainable: defeat and expel the Iraqi forces from in and around Kuwait. There was no attempt to coordinate limited force with diplomatic initiatives designed to bring Saddam Hussein to the bargaining table. Once the use of force was initiated, it was used to gain an overwhelming advantage, one so overpowering that it allowed us to sustain the lightest casualty rate in the history of warfare. The architects of Desert Storm had no desire for protracted war. The campaign was to be quick, decisive, and conducted solidly on terms that suited the coalition forces. …

Old World Order

Abstract: Twenty-five hundred years ago the Chinese military historian Sun Tsu wrote in The Art of War: "To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." This is what the United States and its allies have achieved in defeating the Soviet empire. This is a time of maximum victory for the cause of freedom. The majority of American troops in Europe now can come home. They have achieved their principal objective: deterring and, if necessary, defending against a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Already the number of American troops has fallen to 225,000 from 338,000 at the height of the Cold War. Even this lower number now can be cut by two-thirds. It is still in the interest of the United States to station 70,000 to 80,000 troops in Europe, however. These forces would include two light Army divisions, two or three Air Force fighter wings (perhaps on a rotating basis), command facilities, and bases for servicing long-range aircraft and the fleet. A deployment of this size would be politically acceptable, militarily sensible, and affordable. It would serve three major objectives. The first objective is to maintain the NATO alliance, although at vastly reduced force levels. With its Cold War victory, NATO has achieved its most important purpose: collective security against the Soviet threat. Its secondary purpose of keeping the peace between the great Western European democracies remains. If NATO now disintegrates, there is a danger that the countries of Western Europe will go their separate military ways, as they did for centuries leading up to World Wars I and II. NATO simply cannot survive without some American participation, and without NATO it is only a matter of time before we see a reemergence of the nationalist tensions in Europe that so often have provoked conflict in the past. Collective security through NATO may not be perfect, but it is better than the alternative, which is an assemblage of more than 50 countries with no military cohesion. The second reason for maintaining an American presence in Europe is to continue conducting military training with our principal friends and allies. In the Persian Gulf War, we were able to conduct military operations in concert with the British, French, Italians, and other allies. We must maintain that capability. The third reason to maintain this deployment is that, like it or not, the one place in the world on which Western civilization depends is the Middle East. Without Middle Eastern oil -- especially Saudi Arabian oil -- the lights go out all over the world. As every recent American President has made clear, the United States is prepared to fight to assure that this vital resource is not abruptly denied us. To maintain this policy without the base structure, logistics, and political cooperation of Western Europe would be very difficult, perhaps even impossible. Kiddies in the Sandbox NATO is not obsolete with the end of the Cold War. The grand alliance has achieved its principal purpose of stopping the Soviet Union from invading Western Europe. But there was a second important reason for the establishment of NATO. This was to ensure that our Western European friends, especially the larger nations of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, no longer would fight with one another. After World War I, French and German military forces operated in an atmosphere of distrust, isolation, secrecy, and fear. Whatever the economic strains that now exist between those two countries, their borders are open, their militaries cooperate, and neither expect Napoleon or Hitler to reappear as aggressive military reincarnations. Britain and France are both nuclear powers, but even after hundreds of years of intermittent warfare, neither targets its missiles on the other and neither believes there is even the remotest chance of such a development. …

Prelude to a Landslide: How Republicans Will Sweep the Congress

Abstract: The Left has known for months that it would lose the White House, but the capture of the Senate and House by the Republicans and the overwhelming gains made at the state level have left the Democrats in disarray. Speaker Gephardt was on CBS blaming the disaster on Bill and Hillary Clinton, but could not answer Dan Rather's question about why so many Democratic city councilmen and mayors went down. I agree with David Broder that the Republican Party has finally accomplished a true realignment. He cheerfully points out, however, that the last time the Republicans took the White House, Senate, and House was in 1952, and we lost the House and Senate two years later. With that in mind, I enclose my thoughts on what we did right over the past four years. If we Republicans can understand how we built this victory, perhaps we can turn it into a repeat not of 1952, but of 1896, and usher in a generation of Republican dominance in national politics. Grass Roots Rebellions I believe the wave of initiative elections in 1992 and 1994 paved the way for Republican electoral victories this year. Eighteen years ago, the July 1978 landslide victory of Proposition 13 in California foreshadowed the victory of Ronald Reagan running as a tax cutter; the Republican takeover in 1980 of the Senate and the 34-seat pickup in the House was based on the party's subsequent endorsement of the Kemp-Roth tax cut. In the same way, the initiatives of 1992 and 1994 helped define the issues and energize conservative voters and activists. Back in 1976 Ronald Reagan ran as a budget-cutting Republican. Only after the victory of Proposition 13 did Reagan bring the supply-side, tax-cutting strategy to the fore. By November 1978, the entire Republican Party was running on tax cuts as the national issue and a half dozen other states passed Proposition 13-style initiatives. The issue rose up from the grassroots to the party and Reagan was smart enough to run with it. The initiative battles of 1992 and 1994 gave the Republicans not just one winning issue but a multi-faceted agenda with depth, broad appeal, and an army of activists determined to change national politics. In November 1992, initiatives were passed in 14 states to limit the number of terms members of Congress can serve. These initiatives survived the taxpayer-funded challenges in the court because they were specifically written to fit the Constitution's assignment of power to the states to determine ballot access. Those 14 initiatives in 1992 and the eight others that passed in 1994 all state simply that a candidate can only appear on the ballot a limited number of times; usually three times for the House and twice for the Senate. Write-ins would be allowed, but they would be unlikely to succeed. When the New Hampshire and New Jersey legislatures passed term limits on members of Congress, it brought the number of states under term limits to 25: covering fully half of the Senate and 156 members of the House. The Ticking Tax Bomb The late Lee Atwater's admirers remind us that he pushed the party to endorse term limits early -- it was in the 1988 and 1992 Republican platforms -- and House Republican freshmen in 1991 forced through the rule that no Republican could have a ranking position on a House committee for more than six years in a row. After the 1994 election, the Republicans in the House expanded that to limit tenure on any committee to six years, and the Senate Republicans followed suit. The Republican Party was ahead of the curve on term limits and flexible in meeting the challenge term limits pose to elected officials. The Democrats hurt themselves by visibly opposing term limits -- which passed in 1992 with an average of 66 percent support and in 1994 with more than 70 percent. Ross Perot, typically, endorsed term limits only after they were a fait accompli . But term limits were just one prong of a populist offensive. In 1992, Arizona passed Proposition 108, a constitutional amendment requiring that any tax hike at the state level would need a two- thirds vote in the state legislature. …

City Lights: America's Boldest Mayors.

Abstract: There's not much good news coming out of America's big cities these days. The streets resemble war zones. Racial tensions are worsening, bridges and sewer pipes are crumbling, basic services are deteriorating - and city spending and takes keep rising. "Many cities, once mighty financial and manufacturing centers, are becoming hollow cores of poverty and crime," says Stephen Moore, an economist with the joint Economic Committee of Congress. For decades, millions of city dwellers have responded to these conditions by moving to safer, cleaner, and lower-taxed suburbs. In 15 of the nation's 25 largest cities, population has fallen by 4 million since 1965 - while the U.S. population has increased by 60 million. A little under one-quarter of Americans now live in central cities, down from 37 percent in 1960. Businesses have followed the middle-class stampede away from central cities, transforming former bedroom communities into "edge cities," huge commercial and retail centers where glimmering office buildings and fancy hotels stand beside middle-class subdivisions. Two-thirds of America's job growth between 1960 and 1980 occurred in the suburbs. Even as the population has declined in many of America's big cities, city budgets have mushroomed. Per-capita city-government spending has more than doubled in real terms in the last 32 years. According to a study by the Washington-based Cato Institute, city governments grew most rapidly in the cities where the population fell the most. Caught in a vicious cycle of ever-increasing taxes and ever-diminishing tax bases, population nose-dived by 37 percent between 1960 and 1990 in the highest-spending cities. In the worst shape are the once-vigorous industrial centers of the Midwest and Northeast. Since 1950, the population in St. Louis has tumbled by over 50 percent, while in Detroit and Cleveland it has dropped by more than 40 percent. For years, big-city mayors have blamed the ills of cities on the federal government's purported "shameless neglect" during the 1980s. The mayors tell the media and their constituents that Ronald Reagan and his cuts to local government are responsible for the doomed cities, but they should know better. Since 1965, Washington has spent approximately $2.5 trillion on aid to cities and on inner-city residents in the War on Poverty. Despite the equivalent of 25 Marshall Plans, the conditions of cities have deteriorated. Yet at a time when the plight of cities seems nearly hopeless, three new-style, big-city mayors have emerged who believe most of the answers to city problems begin at home, not in Washington. These mayors - Philadelphia's Edward Rendell, Indianapolis's Stephen Goldsmith, and Milwaukee's John Norquist - desperately are trying to reverse the flow of families and businesses from their cities. Their ideas merit the attention of mayors across America. The Philadelphia Fighter For most of its history, Philadelphia was an attractive city to live and work in. Thanks to inexpensive row houses, the City of Brotherly Love was the nation's leader in working-class home ownership. Crime was low in tightly knit ethnic and middle-class black neighborhoods. Central High School and Girls High School were among the best big-city public schools in America. Over the past 30 years, however, Philadelphia has been a prime example of city mismanagement and urban decay. In 1984, the police department burned down two blocks when trying to evict the radical MOVE cult. Sidewalks were so filthy a few years back that the Philadelphia Daily News published a regular column under the pseudonym, the "Marquis of Debris." During the past 20 years, a fifth of the city's population has fled as crime has skyrocketed, schools have degenerated, and city finances have hurtled out of control. City Hall in Philadelphia long had been famous for corruption and patronage. "The history of the city of Philadelphia is a history of bad government," says Fred Voight, who directs a government watchdog group called the Committee of Seventy. …

1983: Awakening from Orwell's Nightmare

Abstract: This year marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the end of the Cold War. Although it was difficult to foresee at the time, a series of events in 1983 would come together to stop the seemingly inexorable advance of Soviet totalitarianism and to lay the groundwork for the eventual triumph of the West. These events were neither inevitable nor self-executing. They depended upon the decisions of men, and of one man in particular -- Ronald Reagan -- who understood the meaning of this century, the nature of the Cold War, and the set of circumstances that he and his country faced. In 1983, the elements of President Reagan's strategy joined for the first time, making possible the successes that wrought the changes in Eastern Europe in 1989 and culminated in the 1991 implosion of the Soviet regime and the rest of its empire. The Evil Empire Speech The central theme of President Reagan's foreign policy was the ethical distinction he continually made between the West and the Soviet bloc. At his first press conference as president, Mr. Reagan bluntly referred to the nature of Leninist "morality," correctly telling a contemptuous press corps that Soviet leaders "reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat," in order to achieve their objective of world communism. In a famous speech before the British Parliament in June 1982, the president called for a "crusade for freedom," and he predicted that it would be communism, not freedom, that would end up on the "ash-heap of history." But President Reagan's most important Cold War speech was his March 1983 address to religious broadcasters in which he called the Soviet Union an "evil empire": Let us be aware that while they [the Soviet regime] preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination over all people on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.... I urge you to beware the temptation of pride -- the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and labelling both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil. Mr. Reagan underscored the message that no longer would the United States remain silent about the true nature of the Soviet regime. Apprehending the importance of ideas and the danger of truth far better than Mr. Reagan's critics did, the Kremlin construed the evil empire speech as an act of political aggression. Many people understood from the beginning that Mr. Reagan was right. What since has become clear, however, is the effect that his pronouncement had on those who lived in that empire. Among others, Lech Walesa later maintained that the evil empire speech was an epochal event in the long struggle of Eastern Europe to be free; even former Soviet officials since have acknowledged that the speech, in the words of Reagan biographer Edmund Morris, helped "the motherland realize ... it was indeed evil." President Reagan's ultimate vindication came when the foreign minister of the Russian Federation, Andrei Kozyrev, added his concurrence: The Soviet Union, Mr. Kozyrev said in 1992, had been an "evil empire." The legitimacy of this rhetorical counteroffensive was reinforced in September 1983 when the Soviets under Yuri Andropov shot down a Korean Airlines passenger jet, KAL 007, demonstrating with appalling clarity the accuracy of President Reagan's March charge. The incident not only gave momentum to Mr. Reagan's exposure of the nature of the Soviet regime; it also shut down a nascent movement within the administration for a more accommodationist stance toward the Kremlin. The year 1983 also was significant for the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) deployments in Western Europe. …

Hold your fire : gun control won't stop rising violence. by David B. Kopel

Abstract: tag=1 data=Hold your fire : gun control won't stop rising violence. by David B. Kopel tag=2 data=Kopel, David B. tag=3 data=Policy Review, tag=5 data=63 tag=6 data=Winter 1993 tag=7 data=58-65. tag=8 data=FIREARMS tag=10 data=To some well-meaning Americans, the antidote to gun crimes is gun control. Provided by MICAH, Canberra. tag=11 data=1993/5/5 tag=12 data=93/0242 tag=13 data=CAB

America's Wild Kingdom: A Nigerian Immigrant Is Shocked by His U.S. High School.

Abstract: I looked on with bemusement as an attractive female passed a note to a young man in the first row. Some trite vulgarities were exchanged, my more restive classmates started singing, and the teacher was all but completely ignored. Welcome to the civics course at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, a lower-middle to middle-class suburb of Washington, D.C. Though the above scene is a commonplace to American students, as a recent immigrant raised in a poor but industrious village in Nigeria, I was more than a little shocked. Codes of Conduct My initial impressions of Northwestern were a jumble of mixed messages: mini-billboards and placards constantly advertised the dangers of unsafe sex and drug abuse. Everywhere I looked -- on walls, chalkboards, and in the restrooms -- there were institutional invocations to the lowest common denominators of achievement. The school's public address system constantly eulogized students who made it through the month or week without any absences, or those who were only marginally competent in their studies. By contrast, Nigeria's public school system -- which I attended through grammar school and most of high school -- closely mirrors its parent British system in its emphasis on merit-based results and rigid codes of conduct. Students take examinations on different subjects before they proceed to any grade level, and there are separate testing requirements for graduation from any school level and entrance into another. Most of Nigeria's public high schools have boarding facilities, and I attended a boarding school in the east. As in many American boarding schools, the Nigerian schools administer strict guidelines governing clothing requirements, tardiness, obedience to authority, reading habits, and appropriate behavior. Students who come in after the first bell for class, for example, face corporal punishment or some form of detention. Most of the time the detained students are assigned such menial tasks as cutting the school lawn (by hand, with long blades), or washing and scrubbing the classrooms or cleaning the latrine (which had no plumbing). Consequently, being tardy or absent from class was the exception. Students are obliged to perform various chores -- from cleaning the dorm to fetching water for the school cooks -- irrespective of their class levels or backgrounds. Since the plumbing in my high school was hardly ever in operation, students had to fetch water in buckets from local neighborhoods or streams. A Place Where Grades Matter The academic discipline in Nigerian schools simply mirrors the boarding-school environment. At the end of each term of the Nigerian academic year, students are issued report cards that evaluate their performance in various subject areas as well as their class ranking. Grades really matter: Students who do not rank favorably are admonished strongly by both family members and their peers, and those who rank well are rewarded with praise. This helps foster friendly competition. In life outside the classroom, students often try to best each other by reciting lines of verse from Shakespeare or one of Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka's poems or short stories. Academic programs are rigorous. For example, as a "third former" in the Nigerian system -- equivalent to the ninth grade -- I placed into an advanced mathematics track for the next grade level. This enabled me to start working on statistics and calculus in my forth form (10th grade). The atmosphere in this class, and other classes, was demanding. Grades never were inflated and sometimes a C was a welcome grade even for a very good student. The level of instruction in the classroom was relatively high and formal; usually the teacher would lecture and students would take notes quietly and ask questions later. Contrast this with U.S. schools: in some of my advanced grade-level classes at Northwestern, teachers constantly used audio-visual aids and other teaching devices. …

Make War, Not Love

Abstract: The uproar over President Clinton's plan to end the Pentagon's policy banning open homosexuals from the military has subsided -- for now. Both sides are braced for the next phase in the battle, to begin this spring with hearings before Senator Sam Nunn's Senate Armed Services Committee. The intensity of this debate should surprise no one, for few things get Americans so riled up as thinking about sex and talking about rights. It is unfortunate, however, that the controversy has focused more on the presumed rights of homosexuals than on the principles that are fundamental to a strong military. The Pentagon's policy toward homosexuals is both wise and just. It is wise because it accounts for real people functioning in the real world, and recognizes that despite their best intentions, heterosexuals and homosexuals are above all human. It is just because it can be defended without recourse to any criticism of homosexuality on moral grounds; indeed, the only moral basis for the ban is the assertion that preventing unnecessary loss of life is more important than sexuality of any variety. Those who would lift the ban have tried to dismiss the ensuing public outcry as a moral crusade orchestrated by the religious Right. But this underestimates the public's genuine concern. Senator Sam Nunn and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell are hardly right-wing fanatics. Nor are most other Americans, who view this as more than a discrimination issue; they may not condone hatred or intolerance toward homosexuals, but they see how sexuality in the ranks could endanger men in uniform. The ban against homosexuals in the military is neither judgmental nor ideological. It is based on the recognition that military life cannot provide for different individual lifestyles, and that distractions in combat, sexual or otherwise, get people killed. The Marine Corps Is Not Burger King The primary objective of the armed forces is to win battles with as few casualties as possible. For the president or any other leader to permit anything that detracts from this objective to influence military policy and training constitutes gross negligence and is truly immoral. While the military has been better at providing equal opportunity to women and minorities than any other part of society, this has until now been a fortuitous side benefit, not an objective or an obligation. Combat is a team endeavor. To win in combat, individuals must be trained to subjugate their individual instinct for self-preservation to the needs of their unit. Since most people are not naturally inclined to do this, military training must break down an individual and recast him as part of a team. This is why recruits give up their first names, and why they look, act, dress, and train alike. To paraphrase an old drill instructor, the Marine Corps is not Burger King -- you can't have it your way. The purpose of this training, which is continually reinforced throughout the military culture, is to build unit cohesion. Unit cohesion -- on an athletic team, in a family, in a marriage, and on the battlefield -- hinges on trust. Military leaders gain the trust of their subordinates by demonstrating such attributes as character, courage, sound judgment, respect, and loyalty. Soldiers trust each other because of their shared values, objectives, training, and other experiences. To risk one's life willingly demands a degree of trust in one's comrades and one's commanders not found in any other environment on earth. Although such demands occasionally may be made of firefighters or police, soldiers fight in wars, where such demands are routine. It is difficult to foresee a time when homosexuals and heterosexuals no longer see each other as different in a fundamental way. With the slightest introspection, the reasonable person quickly realizes that bonds of trust will be difficult to create between men if there is sexuality beneath the surface. …

Notes from the Underground: America's Sprawling Informal Economy

Abstract: Government policies usually have unintended consequences, but one effect is literally invisible to policymakers. When regulations get too complex or costly, or taxes too high, employers, workers, and entrepreneurs sometimes move outside the official system and into what is called the "informal sector." A growing body of research suggests that the informal sector - also called the underground, unofficial, black, subterranean, or non-registered economy - is an extremely large and highly productive subsection of the economy. In it mostly legal goods and services are bought and sold in a manner that evades the government's regulatory and fiscal reach. During the presidential transition, public attention focused on the off-the-books hiring of nannies, sometimes illegal immigrants. The Zoe Baird phenomenon is but a small part of a vast subterranean economy that has grown in response to overly burdensome and arbitrary government. The informal sector has been studied extensively by professors of anthropology, urban planning, and sociology, whose political sympathies lie with the Left. Nevertheless, their studies highlight a question that should be of interest across the ideological spectrum: Isn't something wrong when an entire segment of the population works extremely hard, possesses valuable skills, and produces goods and services people want and use, yet is shut out of the official economy? Shouldn't their activities be considered legitimate? New York Off the Books Professor Saskia Sassen-Koob, who teaches architectural planning at Columbia University, has studied New York City's informal sector for well over 10 years. She thinks American culture places too much emphasis on what she calls "valorized" occupations - those with a high degree of visibility to match their high wage levels. Professor Sassen-Koob and her graduate students are doing hands-on work interviewing informal street vendors, car repairmen, cab drivers, and others employed in the informal economy all over New York. The researchers have found substantial informal activity throughout the apparel industry, general construction, masonry, stonework, plastering, toys, sporting goods, and electronics. They found unlicensed or unregistered work in most of the 40 standard industrial classification sectors they examined. Concentrating mainly on new immigrant communities in New York, they found an extremely diversified informal economy among Hispanic, Chinese, Koreans, and Russian immigrants in Brighton Beach. In many areas of Queens (Jackson Heights, Ridgewood, and Astoria) and in Brooklyn (Sunset Park and Williamsburgh), skilled cabinetmakers produce customized furniture for a high-income clientele and basic furniture for lower-income residents. Many of the furniture shops are located on the second floor of buildings, since the first floors must adhere to enforced zoning codes, making them available only for other uses. Professor Sassen-Koob and her researchers estimate that in one four-block survey in Manhattan, 90 percent of all interior work was done without required permits and licenses. In government-funded projects, on the other hand, the official sector dominates. But in those public sector projects using subcontractors, growing numbers of informal workers are involved, as indicated by the increased number of labor violations recorded by the Department of Buildings. These are the "fly-by-night" operations often denounced in the press. Sometimes it takes an accident and follow-up investigation to reveal informality. One such case occurred in the early 1980s when a crane operator dropped a block of cement and nearly crushed a passerby. The newspapers were outraged to discover that he was unlicensed, and a follow-up showed an unexpectedly high incidence of people working without licenses. Clothing is one of the most important informal industries. Professor Sassen-Koob has discovered that most production workers in the apparel industry in New York and New Jersey do unregistered work in "sweatshops" and at home and sell their product to registered New York firms. …

A Bulwark against Faction: James Madison's Case for Term Limits

Abstract: In 1787 a French diplomat made a remarkable prediction about the American political system. Reporting to his home government, Louis Guillaume Otto pointed to what he believed was a critical flaw in the new American Constitution: It is true that the President will be elected for only four years, the Senators for only six, the Representatives for only two, but they will always be eligible [Otto's emphasis]; will not elections be for sale...especially when they will be able to command the public treasury at will? Anti-Federalist opponents of the Constitution had serious doubts about a lack of term limitation, fearing a distant government that would grow independent of its electors and become corrupted by centralized power. Term limitation also had a backer within the ranks of the Federalists, the "Father of the Constitution" himself, James Madison. Madison's call for legislative term limitation was unique, in that he proposed to use the concept as a means to control special interests. It is his argument that speaks to us most forcefully today. Rotation of Offices The notion of restricting re-election is as old as the democracy of ancient Greece, where the practice of legislative term limitation found expression in the writings of Aristotle. The idea was adopted by English republicans, the most influential of whom was James Harrington. Harrington made "rotation of offices" a centerpiece of his model Commonwealth of Oceana, a plan Madison probably studied when contemplating the design of an American republic. Harrington's concept of rotation was passed down to generations of English and American republican thinkers, including the framers of the Articles of Confederation. A number of early American state constitutions also adopted the concept for a range of office holders, from governors to local sheriffs and coroners. Madison's colleague and fellow Virginian George Mason wrote term limitation into the influential Virginia Declaration of Rights, illustrating how re-election restrictions were commonly associated with the most essential constitutional guarantees against tyrannical government. Anti-Federalists believed that legislators inevitably became corrupted when allowed to hold office for long periods of time, and that one way to ensure just laws was to compel legislators to live periodically as ordinary citizens under the laws of their own design. Equally important, rotation of offices would educate large numbers of citizens in the art of governing through office holding, and thus make it more difficult for government to encroach on their liberties undetected. Many Americans of the founding generation saw rotation of offices through mandatory term limitation as a key to the maintenance of a selfless and politically astute citizenry, qualities known as public virtue, which were necessary if the republic was to survive. Popular Government's "Mortal Diseases" Madison agreed that a measure of public virtue was required for the operation of republican government, but was more inclined to believe that man was essentially a self4nterested creature and that public virtue alone was not enough to secure the republic. His great concern was that groups of people, or factions as he called them, would come to dominate government at the expense of the common good. Madison's idea of faction is nearly identical to the modern notion of special interest. In his now-famous Federalist Number 10, Madison defined faction as a group of citizens "adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." He pointed out that factions may derive from different moral and philosophical opinions, but are especially potent and determined when motivated by economic interests. They are "the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished," said Madison. Because factions are endemic to free society, the central intellectual challenge in designing a constitution for the United States was to minimize the effects of special interests on government. …

Scouts 'N the Hood

Abstract: It is after dark in Harlem The streets are thick with tension Fearful residents are barricaded in their homes, while crack dealers solicit passers-by on every block Sirens and gunshots pierce the air At a local gym, a small gang of black teenagers stops playing basketball as its leader arrives At his command they gather together, raise their hands in a special sign, and repeat their gang's creed, "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight" This "gang" is Boy Scout Troop 201, which meets at the Judge Kenneth M Phipps Police Athletic League in Harlem Like millions of scouts all across the country, they adhere to the same Scout Law: "A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent" But to these boys and their parents, scouting is different Even more than in the rest of the country, it is a way to protect their families from the violence and moral breakdown that surrounds them "Scouting lets your children see something besides selling drugs," observes Barbara Banks, a parent and volunteer who works with Troop 201 Eddie Fletcher brings his grandson to the troop meetings, saying they have made the boy a new person Another scout, Earl, has been a member of Troop 201 for a year He is serious, almost angry looking; he has been kicked out of other troops twice before for fighting Asked what he likes most about scouting, Earl responds, "The discipline -- it helps control my temper -- and the camping trips" Through scouting, some of Earl's anger has been channeled into a determination to overcome obstacles In spite of the problems with his temper, Earl says, "Nothing stops me from scouting It's fun" Urban Eagles Two-hundred-fifty miles away, in the most dangerous part of Washington, DC, another group of scouts meets Sitting in Irene Gardner's Southeast Washington living room, eating Christmas cookies and drinking punch, these 11th- and 12th-grade boys are learning the ropes from former troop members now in college Troop 1650 is remarkable in scouting achievement Since 1988, 10 of its members have reached the rank of Eagle Scout This is the highest honor in scouting, which less than 3 percent of all scouts attain The Eagle Scout award requires years of work A boy must serve as a troop leader, complete numerous merit badges, and carry out a major community service project To produce 10 Eagle Scouts is an outstanding achievement for any troop This is no small feat for boys from Southeast Washington, many of whom come from single female-headed households At this Christmas meeting, the scouts hear "things they would not get in a seminar," says Scoutmaster David Morris: the lowdown on "girls, drugs, liquor, homework, and the need to study" For three hours they discuss the "benefits of going to a black versus a white college," and "what to look out for, and the racism found in college" This is the kind of information that boys like 16-year-old Darryl Gardner, who wants to be an engineer, are hungry for The 12 assembled scouts will use this knowledge to help themselves succeed For the members and families of Troops 201 and 1650, and other inner-city troops like them, scouting is a part of their fight to save their children and rebuild their communities Today, the Boy Scouts of America are bringing their programs to inner-city areas across America Scout leaders are taking many children out of the city for the first time and teaching them how to pitch a tent and cook over an open fire The Boy Scouts gives these boys -- many abandoned by their fathers -- their first lessons in self-discipline, loyalty, and personal honor In Baden-Powell's Spirit In so building character, inner-city Boy Scout troops are following the original spirit of the scouting movement …

Government Can't Buy You Love

Abstract: I remember the precise moment when I knew George Bush would not be re-elected. It was June of 1991. After two years of intense deliberations, the National Commission on Children was about to release its final report. As the ranking member of the Bush administration appointed to the commission, I was called to give a briefing to a senior official at the Office of Management and Budget on the likely contents of the commission's final report. Although I didn't agree with everything contained in the final report, the document was remarkable in that a small band of conservatives had managed to persuade a much larger group of liberal members -- most appointed by the Democratic leadership in the Congress -- to produce a report almost completely devoid of recommendations for major expansions of social programs. Instead, against all predictions, the commission's final report strongly endorsed the two-parent family as the best environment in which to raise children, issued a call for greater responsibility and self-restraint on the part of the mass media in the messages and values transmitted to children, championed tax relief for families, and even promoted school choice. Already picturing myself as the new under secretary at some distinguished cabinet agency, I decided to lead off the discussion with our most impressive achievement: the endorsement of tax relief for families based on the premise that what families need most is not more money in the federal budget, but more money in the family budget. I was no more than 30 seconds into my description of the tax credit proposal when I was interrupted abruptly by a string of expletives, that ended with the declaration, "What kind of idiot would want to do that?" It was then that I first whispered to myself, "These guys just don't get it." Liberalism's Materialist Fallacy Children's issues are funny things. Politicians love children, and often talk about them. But when asked to translate their rhetoric into meaningful public policy, the same politicians quickly change the subject, or proceed to trot out largely symbolic initiatives, or naively demand increased funding for often unproven, and sometimes even harmful, social programs. This tendency was a major shortcoming of the Bush administration. Without a clearly articulated set of principles to guide child and family policy, we often behaved as if we believed the same thing that many liberals do: that government can solve all problems if it spends enough money on social programs. In fact, the Bush administration oversaw a 66-percent increase in funding for children's programs, including unprecedented expansions for Head Start, the Women, Infant and Children's Food Supplement (WIC) program, childhood immunization programs, and Medicaid. Overall, we increased spending on children's programs from approximately $60 billion in fiscal year 1989 to over $100 billion in fiscal year 1993. But in doing so, we inadvertently embraced what I call the social spending agenda for children, an agenda that views childhood as largely the result of how much government spends on social programs for children. From this perspective, the more money we spend on -- or "invest in" -- social programs for children and families, the more childhoods we ensure; the measure of how committed you are to children becomes how many tax dollars you are willing to spend on children's programs. If you are willing to spend $8 billion of the taxpayer money on Head Start and I am only willing to spend $4 billion, then under the social spending agenda you are twice as committed to children as I am. The federal government largely has operated under such a social spending children's agenda for the past three decades. Spending by the federal government on social programs for children and families has increased dramatically since 1960, far outpacing the rate of inflation. Yet, despite this extraordinary growth in the federal spending, by almost all indicators more children today are at risk for poor developmental outcomes than were at risk three decades ago. …