January 30th, 2005

Sunrise

This morning, the sun shined upon Iraq from a clear, crisp, blue sky. After the rains of last week, its job of drying the soil is nearly complete, and now it serves to nourish the brave, bright green sprouts peeking here and there from that soil into the early, early spring desert air. This year, almost as if on cue, a new species of plant sprouted, essentially heretofore unknown to this part of the world, though it was once the home of great Hanging Gardens and the birthplace of the rule of law.

Those small leaflets poking from the soil have been identified as of the genus democratus, though the species is difficult to pin down, as each new sprouting is almost always a brand new species. As with all newly-sprouted plants, this one continues to require careful nourishment and care, though it may very well prove hardier than we think.

As is often the case with a new birth, let us stand in humility that such a thing exists at all, let alone what a gift it is that we are able to witness it. For today, I am truly humbled.

It is interesting to note that for many, this Sunday's Christian church services featured a series of readings from the Bible consisting of and relating to the Beatitudes. It was probably not intended by man, but it is fitting nonetheless. For over the past months, and over recent weeks in particular, the prideful and violent have bullied the meek. They repeatedly threatened to boycott this birth (as though not looking at a plant somehow proves its lack of existence), and, worse, to kill any who may have been associated with aiding it. But today, the meek were willing to suffer in righteousness, if the need arose. And today, even those more closely aligned with the murderous few have had to admit that this was a day that the silent majority of the meek stood and inherited the earth.

A long season remains before the harvest can be gathered, but gathered it will be. For today, when the danger was greatest, millions upon millions of men and women stood together with purple, rather than green, fingers and thumbs, and said together "We will be stewards of this democracy. We will stand for ourselves."

The Democratic Drive

From Counting Sheep to Counting Ballots

I laid awake last night with my ears plugged into my handy mp3 player, thinking about life, love, the universe, string theory, music, and democracy - these are the sheep in the skull of the Red State Ranger. Or at least they were last night. What a wonder the invention of the mp3 player is. Hundreds of CDs all fit inside a little case the size of a pack of cards or cigarettes. They hold so much music that without a second thought I was able to add even my old bargain-bin classical CDs - just $2 each - that I got back when CDs were the newest thing. And as if having the music of the aristocracy available for a small pittance weren't enough evidence of progress, what used to takes "stacks of wax," shelves of tapes or books of CDs now all neatly fits into your pocket, giving you a portable soundtrack for your life.

But this isn't an advertisement for the newest iPod; it's something much less consequential, and something that will most likely not earn as much. It's a reflection on the continuing democratization of society.

Look all around you. You'll see evidence of a truly democratic life. Not only can one carry his own personal soundtrack around in his pocket, he can share it with others in an attempt to persuade them of the superiority of his ideals - in this case, his taste in music. You, dear reader, are but a few clicks from finding information on nearly every musical artist, and also a few clicks from hearing samples of nearly every song and album, as well. Not only do you have unfettered access to these libraries, all musicians also have access to being in (or creating) such libraries. That is democratic access.

But the trend isn't limited to music, nor even to modern life and the internet. With the invention of the affordable car, peoples' travel plans were no longer subject to train schedules and stops. With the advent of network radio and television news, people were no longer subject to learning about their world only through their local newspaper. Those trends continue, as you are also but a few clicks away from being your own travel agent or news editor. This is not to say that the "old" ways are obsolete ways of life, it is far from it. This is merely an attempt to emphasize the exponential increase of man's ability to create his own world.

My old college philosophy professor said that "Every system is perfectly designed to effect the result it does." I'd like to humbly add a corollary to this bit of wisdom: "Every system is a perfect result of the sum of its components and inputs." With these two givens, what can the democratizing trends tell us about humanity? Well, to start, our "system" is perfectly designed to result in an exponential increase in democracy. But what is this system? It is society. In other words, The sum of the desires and intent of humanity nets a massive increase in overall personal democracy.

Chesterton once wrote a parable in which a boy leaves home to seek and slay a massive giant. After months and years on his journey, he finds nothing. In his deepest moment of despair, ruing the day he embarked on such a foolish errand, he turns his face homeward, only to discover that he now sees that the home he left was built upon the long-overgrown corpse of the giant all along.

It would appear that we've come to the end of such a journey here. After reflecting on the inherent democracy in mp3 players, we went on a roundabout quest to discover that it is evidence of a larger human drive for democratic life. But it would appear that we've missed our giant from the beginning.

Tomorrow, Iraq will hold its first free elections in over half a century. Those who hate this possibility have threatened those "caught voting" with death. Yet, in a country so apparently riddled with undemocratic violence, polls show that up to 80% still plan to vote. Most of these people have never known anything but tyranny, and their educations were largely controlled by tyranny. Nevertheless, up to 80% of the entire population will quite literally risk their lives for something they've never known, nor scarcely been taught. These brave souls may not yet fully grasp what it means, but they know it's something like democracy. And they know that democracy is something like personal independence. And, whether it's in headphones or the voting booth, personal independence remains the fundamental drive of the human spirit.

Iraq is a Quagmire

A Journal Entry

Now, before you Blue-State-types get too excited by that title, you should probably read the rest of this entry. I'm not talking about some vast, geopolitical concept, nor is it some reference to Vietnam. It's simply a statement of the way things are right now: and after an inch of rain yesterday, this place is a quagmire.

There's mud everywhere, and big puddles in between the mud-bridges, thus proving it's not totally flat here. But, true to form, everyone with some time pulled together and scrounged up some old "floor boards" and wooden palettes, creating boardwalks across the most extreme and most well-travelled bogs. So, now, walking back from the shower no longer requires walking through big puddles of mud, which is generally a good thing. With a little hard work and ingenuity, the quagmires of mud and water are no longer a factor to every day life.

It's cold, and getting colder. It's not freezing, but it's certainly not balmy, vacation-destination weather, either. The wind was ridiculous yesterday - some reports were of 40mph steady-state winds. I suppose my earlier comparisons to Kansas weren't that far off. But the cold weather is also good - with as much standing water there is around here, a warm spring day would make this a miserably humid breeding ground for mosquitos. It's not that time of year yet, thankfully.

A Glass of Lemonade for Humanity

Industriousness and Improvement

My grandfather built his mountain retirement home, as the saying goes, with his bare hands. From what I understand, my great-grandfather (on the other side) did the same with his farm house – the very same house I grew up in. I’m sure many families have very similar histories. The interesting thing, however, is that one doesn’t hear very much of the same thing happening in the present. Sure, more and more people are buying homes, but that doesn’t mean that more are designing and building them. In fact, the opposite is probably true.

There are many factors that go into this societal change. The first is that housing is cheaper when mass-produced, and a corollary we are seeing is that houses can be more commonly made “custom enough” on the cheap, as well. Now, don’t get me wrong – not only is the trend a positive function of the free market, but it is also a distinctly democratic trend in home ownership that speaks great volumes to our excellent standard of living. Additionally, it may even hint to an increasing trend in the fulfillment of the dream of our Republic – the exercising of the rights to life, liberty, and property, and therefore a greater accessibility to the pursuit of happiness.

But, then, I’m an optimist. A pessimist might say that hiring out construction work to contractors is part of a disturbing larger trend in trading the pride of building a self-made life for finding a simple, cheap, cookie-cutter solution instead; a trend that is seen also in simple oil changes, simple frozen dinners, simple clothes shopping, simple interstate travel into simple catch-all truck stops or simple chain hotels, and all along keeping the back seat quiet with simple in-seat DVD players. And that pessimist, though rather long-winded, has a good point. After all, we all enjoy a certain pride in doing things ourselves, and losing that pride of creation and self-improvement is tantamount to losing part of what it means to be human.

The optimist, as always, has the last word. Even a society that has been simplified to complexity cannot kill that drive of industriousness in us all; at its worst it sends it on vacation. You see, I’m living in that proof. When I was told we’d be living in tents here, I expected to be lucky to stay dry and warm every night. What I found instead were palaces of plywood and 2x4s, creating private cubicles for rooms, “stadium seating” facing TV sets for movies and video games, and elaborate, screened-in porches for less-electronic entertainment. Is it the easy life? Certainly. But to leave it at that ignores the hard work and long days that have been, and continue to be put into building and rebuilding our “homes.” After all, the people who built these Palaces of Pine had other pursuits that came first on the priority list. And this isn’t the first time such dwellings have been created ex nihilo, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Ayn Rand might say that the builders are a select few, all of whom may be uniquely attracted to the purposes and lifestyle of the military, nothing more. I wholeheartedly disagree. Granted, many in this group are more mechanically-inclined than most, but that doesn’t also change the fact that we’ve also all bought our fair share of frozen dinners back home, or that one prominent purpose of our building has been to simplify more leisurely pursuits. To the contrary, this small example serves to prove that even in our cookie-cutter society; we remain the same creatures our fore-fathers were: we see a hard life, and almost instinctively will pay any price and bear any burden to create a world less harsh than we’ve known, for ourselves and for those who will inevitably come after. This is a concept not limited to simply nail and board, nor is it merely an American or Western value. The drive to create a better life is invincible; it is the very core of what it means to be Human.

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Well, mostly...

Sure, it's as flat as Kansas, on a clear night there are as many stars as Kansas, the rain on the dirt even smells a little like Kansas, and, as I found out this morning, it gets windy like Kansas. But that's about where the similarities end.

You see, I'm in Iraq. I'm currently deployed here with the military, but, as I'm sure you can understand, I can't get much more specific than that for a number of reasons. As a result, this post marks a change in the format of my blog, at least for the time being. Instead of being an essay format, it will become somewhat of a journal/essay hybrid - at least that's my intent. I'll still try to do my best to keep the content fairly readable; I know this might be disappointing, but you'll get no "I woke up and brushed my teeth today" from me. So, stay tuned, and I'll try to make it worth your while and mine. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop them in the comment section, and I'll do my best to address what I can. Until then, you can expect my first journal-essay sometime tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

The American Dream (Part Three)

If You Can Keep It

After months of arguments and tense negotiations, Benjamin Franklin exited Independence hall with the news of a finalized Constitution for a new American government. As the story goes, among the people who met him outside was a woman who was anxious for his report on the structure of the new government. She asked if it was a republic, or a monarchy. Franklin's simple reply: "A Republic, if you can keep it."

Let us ignore the objective portion of his response for the moment and reflect instead on the direction that follows. "If you can keep it," warned Franklin, though he spoke that not to the gathered delegates, nor to "His Excellency" George Washington, nor to authors Madison and Jefferson. Much like those famous words that began the document in question, Franklin spoke directly to We the People. "A Republic, if you can keep it." Can you hear that call? He is speaking to you. You call yourself an American? Then keep this Republic.

If you've read the previous two sections, you've seen how much power We the People can hold, if only we stand up and claim it. This is the heart of the American Dream: We aren't subjects of some king in a castle; we are masters of our own castles, and each rulers of our nation. Ruling isn't easy, and it's not often fun. There are times when we'd rather go on vacation than sit on a jury, and times we'd rather watch Monday Night Football than go to the school's open house. But those actions fly in the face of the great responsibility we have been given. This nation is ours, if, and only if, we can keep it.

How do we live up to this great charge? The first, and most basic, is simple citizenship. We must build our neighborhoods and communities. This, and all other steps, is best achieved through action. We must become involved with our neighbors, and together build and keep such a community as we see fit. But also in the command to keep our community is the responsibility of self-enforcement: we must also insure all of our neighbors are encouraged to be good citizens as well.

This method of our republic follows up the chain, from neighborhoods and communities, to cities and counties, to states, and finally our nation as a whole. Just like we cannot allow ourselves and our neighbors to be lax in keeping our communities, we especially must guard against the trap of allowing others to build and keep our local communities at greater levels simply because they can do it. We must guard our duty of self-government jealously, always insuring that we are acting with others and through our representative proxies to keep our republic as close to us as possible.

But this hard and careful work is all for naught if we do not insure that successive generations are capable of doing the same. So, not only must we be involved in our civic duties, such as upkeep of local parks and making sure all of our neighbors contribute as they can, we must also keep our civic duty as individuals in a community of educating our children to be good citizens, and maintaining the highest standards therefore. That act includes of course setting good examples, but also of setting up a system that maximizes key factors such as parental involvement and high expectations throughout.

Americans were once an engaging and industrious people, jealously keeping our right of self-determination, supporting bonds of community through agreement and disagreement alike, and maintaining a parochial attitude - proud of our towns and cities first, our states second, and the federal system that guards them all finally third. Similarly, our most important rights we keep close to us, where we can defend them most easily. These great prides of self and of community may simmer today more quietly than they once did, but I believe they are still there. To rekindle that fire, we can only take these first steps of Local Governance and Education, and Accountability for both, in faith, trusting that the American Dream still burns inside us all.

We have been given a Republic. Let Us Keep It.

The American Dream (Part Two)

On Education and Involvement

When I was in Junior High learning about the Civil War, our history teacher made us watch Ken Burns' documentary on the subject. In all, the movies comprised about 2 weeks of black and white pictures, dulcet narration, and fiddle solos for my history education that year. If you've never seen it, the series combines the use of "history facts" (when the battle of Shiloh was, the site of Pickett's charge in relation to the rest of the Gettysburg battle field, etc.) with newspaper reports and first hand letters home from the soldier to tell the story (or, rather stories) of the War Between the States. The part that struck me, even as an over-energetic young teen with a borderline ADD case, was the eloquence of the letters they read. Granted, Burns probably had the luxury of choosing the best out of a number of sources. And, granted, a skill or lack thereof in something such as spelling is edited in the speaking.

Nevertheless, the Privates, many of whom had come from poor, rural backgrounds where the words "boarding school" were unlikely to ever have been uttered, possessed an uncanny ability to convey some very unique and complex thoughts with an incredible depth of vocabulary. These men who were lucky to have seen the inside of a one-room schoolhouse possessed a command of their language and depth of thought that certainly rivals, if not surpasses that of men and women today, for whom 12 grades of education are a given.

What, then, is the difference between education then and now? Certainly, it's more than a mere coarsening of the vernacular to a point where the language from then is "flowery" by today's standards, though that certainly plays a part. Today's students have access to more books, more paper, more pens, and their learning is funded by more money and taught by better-trained teachers. But it would appear that the rising tide of modern times has not necessarily lifted all ships. What is the fundamental difference between then and now? I submit that the differences are twofold, and can be found in expectations and in accountability.

The world around us is awash in bad writing. Misspelling is an advertising method. The news is no longer written in detailed explanation complete with contextual analysis, instead using small-yet-sensational words to increase buzz and therefore sales. The thinkers of the day are relegated to PBS or short segments on cable, while "reality TV" gets all the ratings. Instead of manipulating language to communicate with those separated by distance and time by letter, a few short sentences over the telephone can now say as much.

Simply put, speaking well is no longer a requirement for survival in today's society. With no external societal forces driving learning, expectations must arise from elsewhere. The two forces driving this expectation with respect to formal education are parents and teachers. Parents, obviously, should encourage success by maintaining high, but achievable expectations, and enumerating them clearly. Teachers must demand excellence and, yes, punish failure. "Thy rod and thy staff shall guide me," and in this circumstance, the parents are the staff - guiding by holding - and the teachers the rod - guiding by prodding. Obviously not all situations are like this, and it becomes incumbent upon our well-trained teachers to recognize which methods work best with which students. But the simple requirement remains - expectations must be clear, high, and held to.

Accountability is the check to ensure that the above three descriptions apply to expectations. In short, accountability is involvement. Some have tried to substitute money for accountability, without much to show for it. School resources are simply not tied to test scores - in fact, richer districts often don't do as well as poorer districts. Simply, there is no statistical tie between the input of money and the output of education. This is not to say that schools should be unfunded, it is to say that since money is not the problem, it necessarily follows that it is not the solution. If we look elsewhere, unlike with money, parental involvement is in fact a statistic directly tied to success. There is no substitute for accountability.

A system is already in place at most schools that leads to strong ties of involvement and accountability. Every Friday night across America, towns empty out, to fill stadiums and arenas to cheer on their local school's teams. There is a strong sense of identity in these communities, and therefore a strong sense of accountability to the activity in question. Sometimes that influence becomes destructive, because the goal of a good sports team is not a fundamentally important one - a win in a game is not as important as the path of teamwork, discipline, and hard work that leads to that win. Similarly, grades are not as important as the path of learning - but when the metric is set by solid and fundamental expectations, good grades are the end of that path.

How does one get as much involvement in drier subjects like education as they do with sports? Sports activities create the identity of the community as it ties to the school, and that will not change, thought the subject of the activity does. Communities can be involved through exhibitions and contests, such as Science Fairs, Speech Contests, and Band Concerts, as well as by the further opening of the doors of the school through meetings with teachers and active organizations like the PTA. Additionally, a little healthy competition never hurt anyone: compare your school's annual test scores and scholarship totals with those of your hated rivals.

These ties, however, are implicit, and are often already in place. Nevertheless, the problem of a lack of parental involvement remains. There is one last, very direct method of involvement, one employed best by private schools. That method should be obvious - involve the parents' bank accounts in the education of their children. Really, it's a simple economic principle: if a product is free, the quality is of little consequence to the consumer, but when we pay for something, the expectation of quality goes up. Therefore, the final piece of the accountability puzzle is a certain amount of privatization of the schools. If parents become economically invested, the incentive to want greater quality for the cost will be the result.

As the clever reader notices, that concept raises both of our quotients - expectations and accountability. The goal of applying those to education is of course societal improvement. A society that has a vested interest in the value and quality of its education becomes a better society. There is simply no reason that America cannot be that society, if only we will begin building it.