Community Colleges v. Free Enterprise?

Our friend at the Idahoan rejects the argument raised by proponents of the college that the Community College will save money on educating nurses:

Recently, Bill Savage, the CEO of Saltzer Medical Group in Nampa, made a very strong and compelling case for a community college in the Treasure Valley. But real free marketers had to wince at this comment from Mr. Savage:

“A new college in this area would be able to train prospective nursing personnel at a fraction of the price other schools now do. For example, the cost of training medical assistants in a nine-month program at Apollo College is upward of $11,000. This is the kind of expense needed for jobs that routinely pay $10 to start. A community college can educate medical assistants for far less.”

To understand the weight of this statement, put yourself in Apollo College’s position. Here’s a privately-operated fully accredited provider of education (which, by the way, means a student at Apollo can get financial aid through the federal government). Apollo College recognized the community’s needs, and therefore, as part of the free market, opened its doors in Boise. Should the government then step in and offer the very same services that Apollo does at a fraction of the cost? Is that fair? Certainly not. How long do you suppose Apollo College will be able to offer the same services to the community it has offered all along?

Well, as Apollo College is a national chain that manages to survive in Albuquerque (which has a community college, Las Vegas (which also has a Community College), Phoenix, Portland, and Spokane (all ditto.) Somehow, Apollo College has survived and I doubt they’re in danger of going out of business. They survive on superiority of service, flexability of schedule for working adults, etc.

Also, taken to its logical conclusion, wouldn’t the argument that the government shouldn’t compete with private educational services suggest we should close down BSU? Few would support that (I doubt even our friend at the Idahoan would.)

If it makes good sense for the government to step in and provide services already being offered by the private sector, why don’t we expand the practice? How much are you currently paying for healthcare? Too much money, right? Can’t the government come in and offer healthcare at a fraction of the cost? Wouldn’t that do a world of good for the poor folks out there for are unfortunate enough to have jobs that routinely pay $10 to start? Or is that just an outrageous statement? If you’ve been paying attention to the debate surrounding universal healthcare, you know it’s far less outrageous to some as it may be to you.

This is a slippery slope argument. Let’s consider that every area the size of Boise has a Community College and the vast percentage have not adopted a single payer health system, I don’t think it follows. Of course, the differences between “free health care” and less expensive colleges are many. There have been no exoduses of college professors to “greener pastures” as has happened with Canada’s best doctors under their single payer system. There are no “long lines” for colleges. You simply are dealing with two different animals, particularly since the government has been in the college business here for decades.

He goes on to raise the possibility of government-run grocery stores and government-run restaurants, neither of which are relevant. A restaurant is a luxury item, a basic college education isn’t. It’s not a fundamental right, but it it quite helpful, particularly as Boise is going to soon face a nurse shortage.

Folks, a community college would do WONDERFUL things for southwestern Idaho. But there are a lot of WONDERFUL things we can do with the long arm of the government and the gumption to pull it off. But, in the end, how do those great and wonderful proposals fit in with the model of government that the founding fathers gave us? And how fair is it to those whose free market platform we cut out from under them simply because the government has the power to do it?

Most of these have been addressed. Regarding the private institutions, as I’ve explained before to paraphrase that ’70s song, “They will survive.” Regarding the Founding Fathers, how about we ask the Founder of our Country, who in his eighth State of the Union address said:

I have heretofore proposed to the consideration of Congress the expediency of establishing a national university and also a military academy. the desirableness of both these institutions has so constantly increased with every new view I have taken of the subject that I can not omit the opportunity of once for all recalling your attention to them.

The assembly to which I address myself is too enlightened not to be fully sensible how much a flourishing state of the arts and sciences contributes to national prosperity and reputation.

True it is that our country, much to its honor, contains many seminaries of learning highly repeatable and useful; but the funds upon which they rest are too narrow to command the ablest professors in the different departments of liberal knowledge for the institution contemplated, though they would be excellent auxiliaries.

Amongst the motives to such an institution, the assimilation of the principles, opinions, and manners of our country-men by the common education of a portion of our youth from every quarter well deserves attention. The more homogenous our citizens can be made in these particulars the greater will be our prospect of permanent union; and a primary object of such a national institution should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic what species of knowledge can be equally important and what duty more pressing on its legislature than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?

Indeed, given that many Founding Fathers spent much of their time building colleges and Universities (ex: Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia which competed directly with the private sector, one can conclude that a community college that allows the great spread of knowledge and information is not at all opposed to their vision but strongly in line with it.

I Wonder What This Is About

Alan Keyes began a series on Renew America on the 2008 elections:

For some time now, I have been receiving emails asking my view of the election and the candidates who are competing for nomination, both Democrats and Republicans. Some people have urged me to get involved as I did in 1996 and 2000. Since I ran against him in Illinois in 2004, some of the media have sought my comments on Barack Obama’s campaign and personality.

For a long time, I have believed that the 2008 election would be a turning point for the survival of the American republic–i.e., our nation’s system of constitutional government based on the sovereignty of the American people and respect for their inalienable rights…

In many ways, the American people are like a monarch whose legitimacy, character, and resources are being systematically eroded by those who mean to replace his rule with their own.

One advisor tells him that the borders are under assault, and that parts of his kingdom must be sold off or surrendered in order to defend them. Another encourages him to kill off members of his family who might challenge him for the throne, while seducing him to waste his time in lustful pursuits with willing partners procured for the purpose. A third assuages his guilt over these crimes and vices by convincing him to abandon the stern morality of his ancestors, and turn from the religion that required it.

Distracted, demoralized, by turns arrogant, resentful, ashamed, and confused, he stumbles from one preoccupation to another, never realizing the truth–that each issue and temptation is only one part of a train of abuses that will end in his removal from the throne.

Don’t know what Dr. Keyes’ is writing about. I doubt it’s a run for the GOP Nomination (if he were interested in it, he would have been well-advised to visit Iowa and New Hampshire recently) but I’ll be interested to hear what he has to say.

Inter-Racial Dating Issues: Prejudice and/or Something Else

Ilya Somin is disheartened by recent numbers suggesting a great reluctance of non-Asian women to date inter-racially. For example, according to this study to have an equal shot with a Black Woman (compared to a Black man) a White man needs to earn an additional $220,000 per year. He writes:

The first is the subject’s racial group’s percentage of the local population where he or she resides. If the person in question lives in an area where her group makes up 80 or 90 percent of the population, she loses very little by choosing to avoid interracial dating. She still has 80 or 90% of the relevant “market” to choose from. By contrast, if her group is a tiny minority, she is passing up far more potential dating opportunities. This may partially explain why whites and blacks are, on average, more reluctant to engage in interracial dating than members of other ethnic and racial groups, particularly Asian-Americans. Whites and blacks are more likely than Asians and Hispanics to live in areas where their group is either in the majority or at least a very large minority – although we should not forget the greater historical prejudice against African-Americans as well.

The second important omitted variable is the strength of the subject’s other preferences in a mate, besides race. The higher your standards for beauty, intelligence, income, social skills, and so forth, the less you can afford to also cut out a large percentage of the dating pool by foregoing interracial dating. The same is true if your standards are hard to meet because they are simply unusual rather than high (e.g. – if you insist that your romantic partner have exactly the same religious or political beliefs, even if the beliefs you hold are uncommon). By contrast, if your other standards are relatively easy to meet, you can probably find a romantic partner even if you are unwilling to date outside your racial group, and you therefore have less incentive to compromise on your racial preferences.

The first observation is true. I’ve seen maybe one or two Black couples out here, but quite a few inter-racial ones. Back in Montana, the local Black population in Kalispell could be counted on two hands, so inter-racial friendship and interracial dating was really the only option.

The second one is subjective at best. How does a researcher measure whether demands are excessive or unreasonable? Those are subjective judgments that don’t really fit well on paper. Some commenters complained that Somin was suggesting all reluctance about prejudice:

I also did not claim that ALL reluctance to engage in interracial dating is the result of “prejudice.” However, some significant part of it probably is. Cultural differences alone cannot account for the fact that there is much greater reluctance to engage in interracial dating with blacks than with other groups despite the fact that cultural differences between blacks and whites are, on average, probably smaller than those between native-born whites and recent Hispanic or Asian-American immigrants.

Well, a couple things to be clear on. Yes, there is some prejudice involved here. However given that a White Man has to earn $220,000 for a shot with a White woman and a Black mean “only” has to earn $154,000, can we say that it’s all on one side?

While some of this prejudice might be hardcore racism or latent racism, or whatever, most of it isn’t. Indeed, prejudice undergirds the whole dating scenes. Some guys like Blondes, or Red Heads, Green Eyes or Blue Eyes. Some girls like muscles, some like brains. Really, a lot of people face a limited pool.

However, part of the problem is that we still live very segregated lives. There are few truly inter-racial churches. At college and work, if we can get away with it, most of us float without thought to our own particular group, or someone are quite shallow and have a great sense of self-satisfaction with how they are trailblazers, but have no real relationships.

Simply put, if our normal, everyday relationships with people of other skin colors are either non-existent or shallow, how do we expect the far more serious relationship of marriage to come about?

A False Analogy

In pointing out the failure of Kos and others to get on the Gun Control band-wagon of mainstream libs, the National Journal writes:

With bloggers in the lead, Dems have gotten past the gun-control issue and helped reclaim majorities with help from netroots backed pro-gun candidates Sens. Jim Webb (D-VA), John Tester (D-MT), and Reps. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) and Heath Shuler (D-NC). As Rudy Giuliani faces heat from social conservatives for telling them they need to “get beyond issues” like abortion, one wonders how many elections the GOP has to lose before they embrace a similar evolution.

False analogy. First of all, abortion hasn’t been costing Republicans elections nationally. It’s an issue that if anything has broken in their favor as National Right to Life documents:

*A 2002 Zogby International post-election poll conducted in nine states with hotly contested Senate races found that 41% of the voters said the abortion issue affected their vote. Twenty-three percent voted for the pro-life candidate while 16% voted for the pro-abortion candidate– a 7% advantage for the pro-life candidate.

A 2002 CBS/New York Times poll (November 20-24) found that abortion tied for second place as the biggest vote-getter for Republican U.S. House candidates. Six percent of those voting for Republican U.S. candidates cited abortion as the most important issue in deciding their vote while zero percent of those who voted for Democratics U.S. House candidates cited abortion as the reason.

* A 2000 Wirthlin Worldwide post-election poll found that 42% of the voters said that abortion affected their vote. Twenty-three percent voted for pro-life candidates and 19% voted for pro-abortion candidates– a 4% advantage for pro-life candidates in general.

A Los Angeles Times exit poll found that 14% said abortion was one of the top two issues in voting for president. They voted 58% to 41% for George Bush. The poll showed George W. Bush with a 2.4% advantage on abortion.

In a 2001 Democratic Leadership Council study, A Why Gore Lost and What= s Next for the Democrats,@ pollster Mark Penn found that Gore won on most specific issues. The three exceptions were guns, taxes, and abortion. Penn= s poll found that 7% of the voters cared deeply about abortionC they went 61% to 30% for George Bush, a net gain of 2.2 percentage points for Bush.

With Gun Control, the situation was reversed. Even if polls showed support for Gun Control, the main people who voted on it were pro-gun. Abortion is a Republican winner and those who say otherwise are perhaps a tad delirious.

Hat Tip: Intapundit

Update:

Don Surber argues the Blogometer gets it wrong when they credit blogs with moving Democrats from their anti-gun stance.

Tuesday Night Talk:

Tonight on the Truth and Hope Report:

-What Senators Don’t Know
-The Costs of the Income Tax
-Change in Sweden
-Planned Parenthood’s War on Retailers
-A Family’s Sacrafice

-Dumbing Down Faith for Men

Click here to download. Click here to add my podcast to your I-tunes.

Related:

Red State:

Hillary Didn’t Read Intel Report Before Voting for War

Blog for Cox:

The Cost of Income Tax

Wizbang:

The Most Prophetic Blog Post in History

Wizbang Politics:

Kerry: Imus shouldn’t be fired

Idaho Chooses Life:

Planned Parenthood Shock Troops Haunt Retailers

Washington Times:

In cutting taxes, liberal Sweden takes right turn

KBCI:

Invisible Children Sale Continues

One News Now:

Florida Church Reaches Out to Men

Trackposted to Pet’s Garden Blog, Perri Nelson’s Website, Rightlinx, Faultline USA, Maggie’s Notebook, basil’s blog, Pirate’s Cove, Planck’s Constant, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Dumb Ox Daily News, Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, Pursuing Holiness, Right Voices, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

On Lieberman’s “Becoming More Republican”

James Joyner writes that Joe Lieberman’s decision to endorse the re-election of Susan Collins should lead to action:

He should resign his seat and run for re-election as a Republican in 2008. Indeed, I suspect Jodi Rell could be talked into appointing Lieberman to fill the seat created by the Lieberman resignation.

The last person to take such a step was Phil Gramm in 1983. A long line of party switchers from Ben Nighthorse-Campbell, Billy Tauzin, Michael Forbes, and Jim Jeffords have not resigned and run again. They understand that they were elected and not their party. Plus, endorsing Susan Collins hardly is considered a conservative move that’s inconsistent with the candidacy that was a typical left-center Democrat.

Bonds Lets The Press Have It

And they deserve it:

“I have the utmost respect for Hank Aaron,” Bonds said. “Hank Aaron was a great ballplayer. He’s the home run king. To me, it’s just a tragedy the way the press is doing it. It’s sad. I have nothing but love for Hank Aaron, period. He’s one of my mentors, as well as Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays and all the other black athletes before my time, and he always will be regardless of what you guys write in the paper.

“Hank is one of the forefronts of history, just like Babe Ruth is one of the forefronts of history, and we respect that, and we all admire them and we all loved them for what they accomplished and (for) giving us a shot and goals to shoot after. We respect them all, and I’m not going to allow the press or anybody to say anything different out of my mouth.”

While Barry has his flaws, the one the media hates is that he doesn’t play their game. Good for Barry.

The Liberals Outdated Fairness Doctrine Campaign

Captain Ed writes that he may have joined Blog Talk network just in time:

It wasn’t that long ago that Democrats extolled the Information Superhighway. The man who popularized that phrase, Al Gore, took credit for creating the Internet and its beneficial streams of information at the fingertips of ordinary Americans. It didn’t take long before they discovered that democratizing information would unleash the electorate — and they apparently fear that shift in information control.

Not many remember the era of the Fairness Doctrine, but I certainly do. It produced multiple flavors of vanilla on public airwaves, with hosts like Michael Jackson (not the singer — trust me) insisting that they were non-partisan and apolitical. (As soon as the FCC lifted the Fairness Doctrine, Jackson declared himself a liberal — and his show didn’t change a bit.) We got call-in psychologists and funny DJs like Mark and Brian, and offensive ones like Howard Stern. What we didn’t get was open political debate, because the headaches of monitoring who got what airtime for what purpose made it almost impossible to manage.

Ending the Fairness Doctrine and relying on the market to manage the message allowed AM radio to rise from the dead. It took an increasingly abandoned medium and revived it with another product, and consumers rewarded those whose products they preferred. Mostly, those talk shows were conservative, and why? The public perceived that the mainstream media presented enough opportunity for the liberal perspective to get air time. Even to this day, liberal talk radio struggles to gain an audience, with a few notable exceptions like Ed Schultz.

Now, with the multiplicity of media channels available, a Fairness Doctrine makes even less sense. With blogs, podcasts, and all sorts of options for all perspectives to publish their perspective, the last thing any of us need is the government replacing the market for political speech. Re-regulation of the airwaves will kill political talk radio — and while that might please those who cannot compete in the marketplace, it still sets a dangerous precedent for government intervention in political speech.

The I-pod and it’s related inventions is about to make the Democrats rush to regulate speech an utterly absurd issue. In fact, it may work out to be WORSE for the Democrats.

Do Rush fans love their Rush so much that they’ll go out and buy an I-pod to listen to him? Yes. What about Hannity? Beck? Yessiree. Good, well-liked hosts will be heard, but what about Radical Russ? What about little known liberal hosts? Growing an audience will be harder. It’s not getting on the air.

Live Talk is the one thing that makes Radio a viable medium. It’s not as easily replicated in Cyberspace. If libs get their way, several things will happen:

-Less Politics on Radio
-A further migration from radio on all fronts in favor of I-pods.
-A revision of the old classic with the new line, “Liberals killed the radio star.”

Podcast #236: Making Sense of the Senseless

Trying to come to an understanding of the Virginia Tech. massacre.

Click here to download. Click here to add my podcast to your I-tunes.

Tax Freedom Day: Coming Soon Midweek Open Trackbacks

Today is tax day, which means that if we worked to pay for the government first, the rest of the year we could keep our money. Nationally, the day is on April 30th. However, it actual varies by State. Here in Idaho, Tax Freedom Day is April 19. However, in Conneticutt it is actually May 20th. Click here to find out when your tax freedom day will come.

Now, onto today’s trackback party. Here are the rules.

1) Post about anything that’s in good taste. No porn, no spam, no profanity.
2) Send me a trackback of any tasteful post you want and as soon as I check my blog, I’ll update this post with your link provided you link back to this thread. If your software won’t allow you to send trackbacks, just use the Wizbang Standalone Pinger.
3) Deadline is Wednesday at 11:00 PM MT. Further trackbacks won’t be posted after that time.

For your convenience here’s today’s link. If you’re a registered user, the, trackback should appear below. If not, here’s the process:

Enter the characters as shown in the box and something like this should appear

This is a Trackback URL that’s good one time only so that we can seperate humans from spammer bots.

Below are other great parties:

Linking in:

Conservative Cat:

Please Stop the Dark Music and the Sepuchral Pronouncements
WLS-AM, which is the local radio station that carries Rush Limbaugh, just completed broadcasting a special ABC News Report on Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech killer. Listening to experts dissect Cho’s motives and interpret his ravings was the last str…

Blog For Cox:

Be wary of increased pressure to restrict gun ownership
The recent tragedy on the campus of Virginia Tech has once again put the spotlight on stricter gun control laws in the United States, but Americans need to be aware of the dangers that lurk within these proposed laws.
Gun control laws are analogous to …

Planck’s Constant:

MOre Guns – not fewer is the Answer to West Virginia Massacre
Annie Oakley Hopkins & Allen Wild West RevolverOriginally uploaded by Brian Howell. In the wake of the recent massacre by a lone, depraved psycho everyone is searching for a law enforcement solution to what they mistakenly assume is the problem.The…

Planck’s Constant:

The War of the Roses of Mohammed

So let’s see: if Muslims might be offended in a non-Muslim country, we should be sensitive to Muslims. If Muslims are offended in a Muslim country, we should be sensitive to Muslims. Now that’s clear.
Blog For Cox

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