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Watching how Putin’s Russia gets things done, David Harsanyi reminds us why gridlock is good.
… Without a strong minority voters are awash in self-determination. Without any true division of power, courts function under a weak and malleable constitution and crony plutocrats work closely with Moscow for the collective good. There is little economic uncertainty and lawmakers are able “accomplish” much without hassle. The Russian Constitution, for example, already guarantees a citizen the right to free healthcare and medical assistance provided by the state. Not us. 1918 called, it wants its debate back.
In general, I’m not comparing the ambitions of Barack Obama and Putin. But Russian politics offers us another lesson on why gridlock is more useful than destructive. The Founders erected an elaborate system of checks and balances to impede the flood of power, bad ideas, and passions, the exigency of overcoming “gridlock”—the “fierce urgency” to get things done, as Obama might put it, seems trumps all other concerns here at home. Polarization in Washington is an organic safeguard against one party’s ability to fundamentally changing the institutions of the country, yet we’re schooled to be repelled by it. In a 2013 Gallup poll 78 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Congress was handling its job. The top concern offered was partisan gridlock. Other polls find that upwards of 95 percent have negative view of the GOP congress – who they blame for creating gridlock when, in fact, a diverse electorate is the guilty party.
Putin’s reprehensible play in Crimea exposes some of the problems with our knee-jerk support for majoritarianism, both internationally and domestically. …
While on the subject of governments without checks on their power, John Fund wrote a piece on hate crime laws.
Forty-five states and the District of Columbia provide additional penalties for crimes that they classify as “hate crimes,” over and above what would have been available if the same crime been committed with a different motivation. In 2009, President Obama signed into law a federal hate-crimes statute that adds a third level of criminalization for violent crimes that occur “because of” the victim’s “actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, disability, or sexual orientation.”
Actual hatred is not required. It is enough that there is a causal connection between the crime and one of these grounds.
Like all federal criminal statutes, this one gives federal authorities the power to prosecute a defendant who has already been prosecuted by state authorities. They can even prosecute a defendant who has been acquitted. Double-jeopardy protections do not apply.
But can such far-reaching federal authority to try a defendant twice be justified under the Constitution, especially given how emotionally charged these prosecutions often are? In the absence of evidence that states are “falling down on the job,” shouldn’t such prosecutions be state-controlled? On Friday, the Supreme Court will decide if it will hear a case directly challenging part of the federal government’s claim of authority in this area. …
According to Glenn Reynolds more government abuse comes from “prosecutorial discretion.”
… with today’s broad and vague criminal statutes at both the state and federal level, everyone is guilty of some sort of crime, a point that Harvey Silverglate underscores with the title of his recent book, Three Felonies A Day: How The Feds Target The Innocent, that being the number of felonies that the average American, usually unknowingly, commits.
Such crimes can be manufactured from violations of obscure federal regulations that can turn pocketing a feather or taking home a rusted bit of metal from a wilderness area into a crime. In other cases, issues almost always dealt with in civil court, disagreements over taxes for instance, can be turned into a criminal case.
The combination of vague and pervasive criminal laws — the federal government literally doesn’t know how many federal criminal laws there are — and prosecutorial discretion, plus easy overcharging and coercive plea-bargaining, means that where criminal law is concerned we don’t really have a judicial system as most people imagine it. Instead, we have a criminal justice bureaucracy that assesses guilt and imposes penalties with only modest supervision from the judiciary, and with very little actual accountability. (When a South Carolina judge suggested earlier this year that prosecutors should follow the law, prosecutors revolted.) …
Joel Kotkin calls for a re-appraisal of our system of education.
… As for the effectiveness of college, a recent Rutgers University report found that barely half of college graduates since 2006 had full-time jobs. And it’s not getting better: Those graduating since 2009 are three times more likely to not have found a full-time job than those from the classes of 2006-08. Since 1967, notes one 2010 study, the percentage of underemployed college graduates has soared from roughly 10 percent to more than 35 percent.
What we need to do is rethink the notion, supported by President Obama and others, that the solution to our education woes primarily is “more.” More what? What are the job prospects for the new crop of ethnic-studies majors, post-modern English graduates and art historians, for example, particularly those from second-tier institutions? These kind of liberal-arts degrees are, as the New York Times recently reported, that tend to earn graduates the least, while those degrees that pay the most are largely offered by schools aimed at technology, mining and other “hard skills.”
First, we need to understand that educational differences and capabilities exist and cannot be easily adjusted simply by forever lowering standards. Our most competitive institutions need to make sure that people leave with the highest degree of critical skills. Grade inflation at Harvard may not produce unemployables, but it does weaken the value of the degree and, even worse, suggests that one can not expect too much knowledge, or reasoning capacity, from graduates. Indeed, many employers complain about the lack of “soft skills,” such as communication and critical thinking, as much as they do about applicants’ lack of harder skills such as math and science.
This suggests that even those of us who teach at more selective universities cannot just rest on laurels. Schools have to focus more on developing actual skills – notably in presentation and research – even among the brightest students. Instead, all too often, as the Manhattan Institute’s Heather McDonald has pointed out, political education – usually, but not always, tending toward the progressive left – actually predominates over learning how to think critically and express ideas coherently.
More important is the need to put greater effort in lifting students who may not be ideal for a classical liberal four-year education. This may include a greater emphasis on skills with practical applications, such as nursing, rehabilitation, technical and scientific areas of specialization. It also includes expanding innovative programs, such as at LaGuardia College in New York, that helps high school dropouts to get their diplomas. …
Andy Malcolm has late night humor.
SethMeyers: A Virginia Tech professor claims he can turn wood-chips into food. However, still no luck with kale.
Conan: Workers building the LA subway have discovered Ice Age fossils. The fossils belong to the last creature ever to use the Los Angeles subway.
Letterman: New scam in town. A ring of hardened criminals is selling counterfeit Chapstick. I knew right away it was counterfeit. The cap didn’t come off in my pocket.
SethMeyers: The world’s longest-serving ice cream man is retiring after 50 years. He plans to spend the rest of his life trying to get that song out of his head.