“Fresh” Thoughts In The Star
The Indianapolis Star has a daily feature in its editorial section, one I quite enjoy, called Fresh Thoughts. In this section, it features citizen voices and their take on issues of the day, sort of an amateur editing staff or mini-blog. For Friday the 12th, the Star chose to focus on the younger mindset of high school and college age voices. Typically, I find that many of the youngsters are well-meaning and quite fervent about that which they are writing. Some, though, are expectedly a bit naïve and occasionally don’t take into consideration the whole story. Interesting biases play out as well.
Take for example a young lady’s piece on college enrollment and gender equality.
We’ve finally done it. Women now make up 56 percent of the college population 0 a percentage that continues to rise.
Quite a laudable goal, I would say. I’m all for getting any student who has the drive and capability to get to college enrolled and learning. An educated populace is not a panacea to the issues (almost everyone present at the meeting to determine implementation of Hitler’s Final Solution for the Jews was a lawyer), it is a good start. An education at least gives you the foundation on which to build reason. However, then she shows a bit of bigotry.
While yes, there should be a concern for equal numbers, college administrators must not center their focus on recruiting more men.
Why? What did the men do to warrant not being treated as equals? There was such a cry for “gender equality” and now that the scales tilt the other way, we’re told gender equality doesn’t matter? Oh, well, I suppose if women are more equal, that’s ok then. That sort of defines sexist bigot. So does her justification for the previous statement.
How can they forget that in the not-too-distant past far fewer women attended elite college at all and most elite colleges admitted only men?
Of course, she’s speaking about events that didn’t even likely occur in her lifetime, but hey, justification for bigotry seldom requires a modern event to back it up. Just look at the issue of slave reparations.
Her finale? Just more of the same.
While a discrepancy in college enrollment is never good, let’s for once focus on the positive. This phenomenon has generated greater independence and opportunities for women of all ages….We have earned it.
Well, right she is, actually. Women have earned the right to be educated without fearing discrimination. I’d hope we’ve seen some progress towards equality in that regard. How well and how capable one learns is not governed by one’s gender. However, if the trend continues for two years, five or ten, with women outnumbering men at universities, will she and those like her continue to tow the same line? Or will they admit that perhaps over-discriminating in favor of women might have caused and will continue to cause a new discrimination against men that then puts the sexism and gender discrimination on the other foot. Bigotry, it would seem, is never gender-biased.
Then there’s the university student who talks of Bush’s low poll numbers. You occasionally see someone eager to show off what they learned in class and that’s laudable. I remember feeling just as willing to share my new-found knowledge with others after Intro to American Politics and my interpretation of the day’s events.
In her case, she mentions the latest CBS/NY Times poll regarding Bush’s approval on a variety of issues.
31 percent approval rating of his job as president, 29 percent approval of the situation in Iraq, 28 percent approval of the economy, 27 percent approval of foreign policy, 26 percent approval of the issue of immigration and 13 percent approval on the issue of gas prices.
She finishes with a discussion of this being why U.S. citizens want a change and raps up by noting that although “no administration can fix decades worth of blunders” she seems to at least bear some hope that the Democrats might be uniters and “stand for progressive economic, foreign and immigration policies rather than criticize". I’m paraphrasing her, but that’s the gist of her argument.
First, let’s look at the approval numbers. Well, Bush is too stubborn to want to be a popular president. I don’t think he has a hoot in hell of making most of the people happy with him, although apparently they were happy enough to elect him in record numbers.
The Iraq situation is a war. I’m not sure how much clearer that can be made. As wars go, it’s gone pretty well. The U.S. position in Iraq isn’t much different than its position in post-WWII Germany or Japan. That’s fact, but when all you hear about is the latest road-side bombing or how much the war costs, well, I can see where one might be disheartened. War is never a pretty thing and always an expensive thing. The sad fact is, those who write and respond to these polls don’t always acknowledge or understand that.
28 percent approve of his handling of the economy? That’s either blindly or willfully ignoring the obvious or just pure ignorance. Another tax cut was just passed, keeping capital gains and dividends taxes down until 2010. The AMT has been held back another year or two, although it should have been repealed (so there’s a small negative). We have a 4.7% unemployment rate and have averaged the lowest unemployment in the last three decades (including the Booming ‘90’s) including the creation of almost two million jobs. So much for the “jobless recovery”, I suppose. Government just reported a budget surplus of $119 billion last month, the fourth largest in U.S. history. This will make our deficit for the year much lower (although it should be zero).
The Wall Street Journal noted that overall state revenues climbed by 8% in 2004 and nearly 9% in 2005, according to the Census Bureau, and more and more states are piling up big surpluses. Yeah, economy’s really sagging. Where exactly is the 28 percent coming from? Probably the only ones who actually had heard of those numbers.
27% on foreign policy I’m having trouble seeing. Exactly what are we supposed to be doing that we’re not? If we’re supposed to be looking out for American interests while attempting to remain friendly to our “allies” and strong and resolute to our enemies, where have we failed? Well, I suppose if you count the kowtowing we’ve done with China and Mexico, our foreign policy is lagging a bit. That we didn’t kowtow to Russian, German, and French national interests just shows we’re not completely suicidal. The problem with polling is that they never ask for specifics, not when it might fail to convey the message they’re wishing to manufacture (which is all polling is anyway). What about the foreign policy in this case are Americans concerned about?
This poll certainly won’t tell us.
Same goes for immigration. Which poll responders didn’t like the fact that we have an impotent government that won’t seal the borders and deal with illegal immigrants and which wanted to have fully open borders and embrace all illegals as new (Democrat) voters? Again, the poll is left wanting.
Lastly, 13% approval on gas prices shows that no matter who the President is, the American people will always assume he or she dictates the price of gas or has that power. It never ends. Clinton, Bush Sr. and I believe even Reagan (and I know Carter) took lumps for higher gas prices. Carter’s price controls, disastrous as they were, were the only thing of the most recent presidents that could be considered worthy of scorn or ridicule. Anything else past and current leaders have done, like open the Strategic Reserve, have been largely symbolic measures. Oil is a worldwide commodity and the desire for it is what drives up its and ultimately gasoline’s price. There’s no way around it, but at least in this way, the media and public are not Party-biased in smacking the President for something he really has no control over.
That she felt uncompelled to address any of the numbers and just take polling data as an apparent mandate for some future Democratic leadership goes a long way to show she really hasn’t thought the issues through very much. She certainly ignored all those rather salient criticisms of the numbers in favor of her argument. She could have reviewed any of the above points and tried to more thoroughly interpret the data, but that’s just not done when you’re young. You latch onto something like a pitbull and run with it. Come to think of it, that happens a lot when you’re older too.
Well, I say, keep the Fresh Thoughts coming, Indianapolis Star. You give us a strong insight into what the mindset of the average citizen, and especially the average student holds. Maybe that will allow a little inter-generation communication and perhaps some of us might even learn something in the process, but then again, I always was an optimist.
The Indianapolis Star has a daily feature in its editorial section, one I quite enjoy, called Fresh Thoughts. In this section, it features citizen voices and their take on issues of the day, sort of an amateur editing staff or mini-blog. For Friday the 12th, the Star chose to focus on the younger mindset of high school and college age voices. Typically, I find that many of the youngsters are well-meaning and quite fervent about that which they are writing. Some, though, are expectedly a bit naïve and occasionally don’t take into consideration the whole story. Interesting biases play out as well.
Take for example a young lady’s piece on college enrollment and gender equality.
We’ve finally done it. Women now make up 56 percent of the college population 0 a percentage that continues to rise.
Quite a laudable goal, I would say. I’m all for getting any student who has the drive and capability to get to college enrolled and learning. An educated populace is not a panacea to the issues (almost everyone present at the meeting to determine implementation of Hitler’s Final Solution for the Jews was a lawyer), it is a good start. An education at least gives you the foundation on which to build reason. However, then she shows a bit of bigotry.
While yes, there should be a concern for equal numbers, college administrators must not center their focus on recruiting more men.
Why? What did the men do to warrant not being treated as equals? There was such a cry for “gender equality” and now that the scales tilt the other way, we’re told gender equality doesn’t matter? Oh, well, I suppose if women are more equal, that’s ok then. That sort of defines sexist bigot. So does her justification for the previous statement.
How can they forget that in the not-too-distant past far fewer women attended elite college at all and most elite colleges admitted only men?
Of course, she’s speaking about events that didn’t even likely occur in her lifetime, but hey, justification for bigotry seldom requires a modern event to back it up. Just look at the issue of slave reparations.
Her finale? Just more of the same.
While a discrepancy in college enrollment is never good, let’s for once focus on the positive. This phenomenon has generated greater independence and opportunities for women of all ages….We have earned it.
Well, right she is, actually. Women have earned the right to be educated without fearing discrimination. I’d hope we’ve seen some progress towards equality in that regard. How well and how capable one learns is not governed by one’s gender. However, if the trend continues for two years, five or ten, with women outnumbering men at universities, will she and those like her continue to tow the same line? Or will they admit that perhaps over-discriminating in favor of women might have caused and will continue to cause a new discrimination against men that then puts the sexism and gender discrimination on the other foot. Bigotry, it would seem, is never gender-biased.
Then there’s the university student who talks of Bush’s low poll numbers. You occasionally see someone eager to show off what they learned in class and that’s laudable. I remember feeling just as willing to share my new-found knowledge with others after Intro to American Politics and my interpretation of the day’s events.
In her case, she mentions the latest CBS/NY Times poll regarding Bush’s approval on a variety of issues.
31 percent approval rating of his job as president, 29 percent approval of the situation in Iraq, 28 percent approval of the economy, 27 percent approval of foreign policy, 26 percent approval of the issue of immigration and 13 percent approval on the issue of gas prices.
She finishes with a discussion of this being why U.S. citizens want a change and raps up by noting that although “no administration can fix decades worth of blunders” she seems to at least bear some hope that the Democrats might be uniters and “stand for progressive economic, foreign and immigration policies rather than criticize". I’m paraphrasing her, but that’s the gist of her argument.
First, let’s look at the approval numbers. Well, Bush is too stubborn to want to be a popular president. I don’t think he has a hoot in hell of making most of the people happy with him, although apparently they were happy enough to elect him in record numbers.
The Iraq situation is a war. I’m not sure how much clearer that can be made. As wars go, it’s gone pretty well. The U.S. position in Iraq isn’t much different than its position in post-WWII Germany or Japan. That’s fact, but when all you hear about is the latest road-side bombing or how much the war costs, well, I can see where one might be disheartened. War is never a pretty thing and always an expensive thing. The sad fact is, those who write and respond to these polls don’t always acknowledge or understand that.
28 percent approve of his handling of the economy? That’s either blindly or willfully ignoring the obvious or just pure ignorance. Another tax cut was just passed, keeping capital gains and dividends taxes down until 2010. The AMT has been held back another year or two, although it should have been repealed (so there’s a small negative). We have a 4.7% unemployment rate and have averaged the lowest unemployment in the last three decades (including the Booming ‘90’s) including the creation of almost two million jobs. So much for the “jobless recovery”, I suppose. Government just reported a budget surplus of $119 billion last month, the fourth largest in U.S. history. This will make our deficit for the year much lower (although it should be zero).
The Wall Street Journal noted that overall state revenues climbed by 8% in 2004 and nearly 9% in 2005, according to the Census Bureau, and more and more states are piling up big surpluses. Yeah, economy’s really sagging. Where exactly is the 28 percent coming from? Probably the only ones who actually had heard of those numbers.
27% on foreign policy I’m having trouble seeing. Exactly what are we supposed to be doing that we’re not? If we’re supposed to be looking out for American interests while attempting to remain friendly to our “allies” and strong and resolute to our enemies, where have we failed? Well, I suppose if you count the kowtowing we’ve done with China and Mexico, our foreign policy is lagging a bit. That we didn’t kowtow to Russian, German, and French national interests just shows we’re not completely suicidal. The problem with polling is that they never ask for specifics, not when it might fail to convey the message they’re wishing to manufacture (which is all polling is anyway). What about the foreign policy in this case are Americans concerned about?
This poll certainly won’t tell us.
Same goes for immigration. Which poll responders didn’t like the fact that we have an impotent government that won’t seal the borders and deal with illegal immigrants and which wanted to have fully open borders and embrace all illegals as new (Democrat) voters? Again, the poll is left wanting.
Lastly, 13% approval on gas prices shows that no matter who the President is, the American people will always assume he or she dictates the price of gas or has that power. It never ends. Clinton, Bush Sr. and I believe even Reagan (and I know Carter) took lumps for higher gas prices. Carter’s price controls, disastrous as they were, were the only thing of the most recent presidents that could be considered worthy of scorn or ridicule. Anything else past and current leaders have done, like open the Strategic Reserve, have been largely symbolic measures. Oil is a worldwide commodity and the desire for it is what drives up its and ultimately gasoline’s price. There’s no way around it, but at least in this way, the media and public are not Party-biased in smacking the President for something he really has no control over.
That she felt uncompelled to address any of the numbers and just take polling data as an apparent mandate for some future Democratic leadership goes a long way to show she really hasn’t thought the issues through very much. She certainly ignored all those rather salient criticisms of the numbers in favor of her argument. She could have reviewed any of the above points and tried to more thoroughly interpret the data, but that’s just not done when you’re young. You latch onto something like a pitbull and run with it. Come to think of it, that happens a lot when you’re older too.
Well, I say, keep the Fresh Thoughts coming, Indianapolis Star. You give us a strong insight into what the mindset of the average citizen, and especially the average student holds. Maybe that will allow a little inter-generation communication and perhaps some of us might even learn something in the process, but then again, I always was an optimist.
posted by Rob Beck | 7:35 AM
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