On being strong-armed...

The post previous -- The consequences of too much pressure and too little thought and engagement on middle school math -- is all about how teachers being strong-armed on something that really matters to me is undermining the goal that it says that it is promoting...namely, not leaving children behind in school, and in life...

But the other consequence of all the strong-arming, right now, is that it is robbing me of the enthusiasm and energy and concern that I generally have for so many issues in my work and life...

And I have just decided -- I decided 4 years ago, really, when I left school -- that I am not going to live my life that way...

Meaning, over time, as much as possible, I will ignore strong-arming and avoid people who do it with me, as much as possible...

I just can't take it any more...I'm at my wits end with it and I would just rather quit teaching or quit policy or quit whatever than I would go on trying to appease people who would perpetually bully me around things that I already have a much stronger passion for than most people do...

I used to feel guilty about that, but I don't anymore...if the consequence of people's bullying is that they lose someone who is as dedicated and committed as I am to their cause, then so be it, is my thinking, today...you reap what you sow...

I am no longer a liberal, because I'm tired of being strong-armed by liberals...I quit grad school because I was tired of being strong-armed in grad school...I will quit teaching and writing if and as long as I am finally tired of being strong-armed in those arenas, as well (though teaching and writing are the most promising avenues for ending the strong-arming, as well, so I will probably still do both of these activities, in some capacity)...

But I will not be strong-armed into perpetuity...

If anyone does it with me long enough, I will eventually leave...everyone is welcome in my life...but I may take a hiatus from places where people can't get the message that their bullying is not welcome in my presence...

I have many times...I will, as many times as I need to, in the future...

As long as there are opportunities for freedom, I just can't live my life being a slave to someone else because they have decided that they should be able to control my efforts...and I don't care who that person or who those persons might be...I am noone's slave or servant...

I act and think freely or I will find somewhere I can...

I have never imagined myself a slave easily cowered by even the most vicious slaveowner...I will now and always aspire to be Frederick Douglas, risking everything, including recapture in Douglas' case, or death in the case of far too many slaves, to be free...

I take my freedom seriously...and if others don't who deal with me, then they will deal with whatever choices I make around our relationship...

I think I just figured out why so many adults look so weathered by time...it's not just grief, although that is certainly part of it, I'm sure...

It's living with the perpetual disappointment that their dreams of freedom as a kid are confronted with the reality of a world that is constantly twisting their arm and compelling their submission...

And I, for one, have just decided that I can't live as someone else's slave my whole life...I will be free, whethers others approve of that decision or not...

Love,
Ben

The consequences of too much pressure and too little thought and engagement on middle school math...

My kids are way behind a long and far too complicated curve...

I just want to go on record to say that the irony of people who don't take thought serious enough is that they generally end of making life far too complicated, when, if they had taken some time to think, up front, they likely would have found the best and simplest way, possible, without making life such a hassle for everyone...

This is one such story...

The curriculum that Kansas City, Kansas operates under is driven by scores on a District MAP test of basic skills and a Kansas State Assessment of skills like math, reading, social studies and science...

No matter what other kinds of learning may need to take place for kids or what would be constructive for their educations, these two test drive education in our district, right now...

And that is a problem...

It's not a problem because the skills on the test aren't valuable...they are valuable...and ones that I would love to cover in a math or reading or social studies or science class...and it's not a problem because we are teaching too low of skills...to the contrary, in my math class, we are teaching algebra and geometry and probability and all kinds of skills that were advanced skills when I was in middle school to every kid in the district...

The problem is the drive...

The problem is that we push so goddamn hard...

And my classes are where that problem show up most starkly...

The irony, I have discovered, as a math teacher, is that if I take the curriculum slowly and teach skills thoroughly and with a lot of review, most kids can get higher level math...it just takes a lot of patience and review and patience and review...our curriculum emphasizes creative application and exploration, so there is higher purpose to math, in particular, rather than just rote learning...

So those developments are all great...

The problem is the drive...that the tests push the kids (and the teachers) too goddamned hard...

As a consequence, the general attitude by many teachers is: we are not teaching for mastery, we must pace through the curriculum at the district-proscribed pace, and if kids get left behind, then so be it (ironic for a system driven by laws and philosophy that say no child left behind, huh?...yeah, if you're not used to reality not matching policy intentions, yet, just follow a few issues like this one to get a sense of it)...

You see...whether political leaders and representatives want to admit it or not...there is a reality outside of their intentions...so, no matter how strongly they may feel or how much they may push for a certain objective to be achieved, it can only be achieved at the pace and in the way that it will be achieved...and pushing the matter is often counterproductive...and this is a classic example...

The problem for me and my kids is that the kids I work with are the ones who regularly get left behind...most of my kids don't have formal, rigorously identified disabilities...they have makeshift labels for why they are failing and struggling in school and why there's nothing some teachers feel like we can do about it...except that we could (and I do) do a lot about it, it just takes veering, somewhat, from the mandates and getting focussed on how to achieve the goal, whether it is by the mandated path or not...schools are failing my kids -- out of a combination of a lot of factors, but legislation forcing measures on schools of teachers, administrators and parents who have not been consulted has a lot to do with the failure...though you would never find a politician or activist willing to take responsibility for their role in that failure, of course...

And this situation illustrates the problem...

Teachers get convinced that if they and the kids are going to make AYP -- adequate yearly progress -- then some kids just have to get left behind to match the ambitious drive of the tests that AYP is judged upon...

Ironic, isn't it?...yep, for me it's just another day in the policy field, where realities frequently -- and these days, more often than not -- fail to meet expectations...

And noone takes responsibility for that fact, of course...because generally they are driven by a self-righteous and self-centered sense of what MUST happen, with little regard for what CAN happen, at any given time...

The wonderful thing about being self-righteous is that when your efforts fail, they are never your fault...it's the nature of self-righteousness...the nature of self-righteousness is that when your efforts fail, you look to others and other variables to account for your failure, because admitting that you might be wrong is the farthest thing from your mind...admitting you're wrong makes you look weak and like, well, you're wrong, which most self-righteous people, really, just don't have the balls to do, frankly...

So instead of admitting that maybe what you're doing is not helping, you just advocate for more of the same because of course the reason why Communism failed because not enough motherfuckers followed the program, not because it's a bad system...the reason why self-righteous theocratic notions of religion fail to translate into a moral, self-governing citizenry is not because of a failure of theocratic notions, but because all of those goddamn liberals who keep letting everyone cheat on their wives and watch all that pornography with reckless abandon...

And, in this case, the reason why kids have to get left behind in math or reading or whatever skill we are dealing with...is not because mandating our way to student achievement is a bad path (though I do have to say that, to their credit, most teachers I talk with recognize that this is a bad path) but because some kids are just never going to get it...or because somehow we have to separate the wheat from the chaff...or because some people are meant to be trashmen and some people are meant to be President...or whatever million excuses that people have for why this stupid law mandating student achievement doesn't work and is counterproductive to the interests of the kids struggling the most, many of whom are in my special education resource room math class...

I do my best with the law...and the kids in my class will likely get a better education than kids in other classes since I teach a high level curriculum with lots of differentiation for different skill levels and lots of review and remediation and lots of reinforcement for the kids that they can do the math, given better opportunities to do so...so maybe they might learn to take advantage of opportunities down the line even if, as has forever been true, they are far from ideal in their offering...

Mandated achievement -- much like the use of force in a whole lot of situations where it is counterproductive, which is more situations than which it is useful -- is a compromise...people who advocate for the use of force to mandate a result always count on the fact that people will have to compromise with them...I just want to make clear, in this case and in many if not most cases, it is a compromise where the better direction is generally less force and less aggression...and no force and no aggression, when that is possible...

Because in this case, the means of mandated achievement -- namely standardized testing -- lead to all kinds of counterproductive results...hiding and fudging scores are one consequence...as is standardized achievement being substituted, legally or substantively, for creative, original thought (an issue that the Florida state legislature has problems with, lately, in their history "standards" -- they hardly become standards the more they veer from actual standards of historical scholarship -- largely because the people passing the laws have very little familiarity with creative, original thought, I am sure, which is all the more reason to humble themselves and to let the thinkers rather than the politicians guide the process)...stressing the fuck out of teachers and administrators and students with not nearly enough results to warrant it...but the most serious consequence is teachers getting convinced that certain students have to be left behind to make sure that the rest of them can make AYP, annual yearly progress...

It's like watching Stalin justify the slaughter of millions to defend an ideology based on the notion of caring for peoples' needs...or Ahmadinejad justify serious incursions on civil and human rights in the name of a more moral world-order...

It really makes no sense at all, really, when you look at it objectively...but when you're rooting for the philosophy or the law or the leader or the need to force the situation, involved, it's much harder to see the weakness because it means calling into question the premises of the endeavor...

The sad fact of the matter is that at Eisenhower Middle School in Kansas City, Kansas, the No Child Left Behind Act and all of the local and state mandates that have accompanied it or guaranteeing that many kids get left behind...because teachers are having their efforts driven -- meaning forced -- by testing that leave them afraid that making sure that all kids learn means that they and the rest of their kids will be left behind the curve...

It's foolish...we would all be better served by a more thoughtful and less forced process...a sequential and progressive curriculum that systematically reinforced math skills while teaching creative and exploratory and integrated math -- meaning geometry and algebra and probability and all sorts of stuff are taught together to solve real world math problems rather than by rote and in the abstract -- and which did so in a way that taught all kids similar work, while reinforcing basic skills along the way and gave all kids plenty of time to cover material and master concepts would serve everyone...

It would also make way too much sense compared the current policy...

And to do so would involve much more thought and much less force, which means that those involved would have to question their efforts in a way that I'm just not convinced that they have the courage to do...

I have to go home...I am pushed beyond my limit, today...

Have a great week, everyone...

Love,
Ben

The corrupting nature of power...

Watching the Mark Twain biography, tonight, it occurred to me the corrupting nature of power...

It is in our power to inflict tragedy and suffering on others to avoid tragedy and suffering ourselves...it is our cowardice cloaked in the clothing of courage...

Our capacity for vindictiveness and punishment (and this tendency of ours' to use power to avoid suffering ourselves) is captured well in Twain's Reflections on Religion (1909)...

http://www.totallyok.com/rel/marktwain

"Our Bible reveals to us the character of our God with minute and remorseless exactness. The portrait is substantially that of a man - if one can imagine a man charged and overcharged with evil impulses far beyond the human limit; a personage with whom no one perhaps, would desire to associate with now that Nero and Caligula are dead. In the old testament His acts expose His vindictive, unjust, ungenerous, pitiless and vengeful nature constantly. He is always punishing - punishing trifling misdeeds with thousandfold severity; punishing innocent children for the misdeeds of their parents; punishing unoffending populations for the misdeeds of their rulers; even descending to wreak bloody vengeance upon harmless calves and lambs and sheep and bullocks as punishment for inconsequential trespasses committed by their proprietors. It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading by contrast."

If you haven't seen the Ken Burns documentary, I highly recommend it...one of the best I have ever seen...

And one of the most powerful lessons I learned from the movie...that Twain was at his most brilliant when he was most fearless and courageous and compassionate in his tackling with humanity's plight...

Love,
Ben

The Bush Administration and its international partners showing their true colors...

It's so funny...the response by the Bush Administration and its international partners reflect just what they think about democracy, today, and what is so wrong in democratic countries, today...

Ahmadinejad challenges Bush to debate...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060829/pl_nm/nuclear_iran_dc

President Ahmadinejad challenges the President to the penultimate democratic tradition: a debate...and the President's spokeperson calls it "a diversion"...

Thought and engagement, the spokesman and his French counterpart, respond, is a diversion from our desire to keep Iran from getting access to nuclear weapons...

Is the Administration scared, do you think? They should be...because I think on this particular argument -- I don't trust Ahmadinejad, personally or as a world leader, but he happens to be right about his country's right to self-determined defense policy, I think -- the Iranian President has the stronger argument...

So the last thing you would want to do if you were wrong, I imagine the President reasoning, is have a debate and have your poorer argument revealed for all the world to see...

But...that's the great thing about argument...it will just keep going on until it gets resolved in the right direction...and even then it will be on-going...no matter what you try to force to the contrary...

It's a brilliant move on Ahmadinejad's part...and happens to be the right one, I think...

"Who's the democratic nation, now?" Ahmadinejad can brag to the Iranian people whose democratic freedoms he regularly tramples on...
Neither Iran nor America lives up, completely...but it's better to raise that democratic bar than the lower it...

And in this case...it is President Ahmadinejad who is raising the bar...and President Bush who is lowering it...

Bad form as an argument for democracy...

But something tells me that this debate will not go away just because President Bush nor his international partners want to engage the argument...

Love,
Ben

Trying to figure out who to look up to...

I had a day, today, that has me finally asking myself some hard questions...

A teacher, today, that is among the special education teachers in the building that I respect has been on a mission to kick a kid out of school...

She doesn't have any reason to think that he will be better served elsewhere...she's not even thinking of that, honestly...

What she's thinking is that he is a major pain in her ass and she wants him off her plate...

And it has me wondering why I do this work at all...and who in the world I have to look up to...

The answer to that question at this point in my life, sadly, is noone...I respect lots of folks...but I don't look at anyone's judgment, anymore, and trust it more than my own...because noone's earned it...

When I was a kid, I was pretty trusting, as it turns out...where others didn't trust their teachers and parents, I did...even when they probably didn't deserve it, as it turns out, as I spend more time with teachers and as I get to know my parents better as I get older...

I trusted my teachers...they were older than me...more world-wise than me...they were generally smarter than me...and I just generally trusted that they probably knew enough more stuff than me that I should probably listen to what they had to say...

I can't name a teacher I think that about, today...and I don't really know if I can name a teacher or scholar or moral leader and definitely not a political leader who I trust more than myself...

It's a very awkward feeling, I have to say...

Because it's not like I know what I'm doing half the time...

It's just that I trust my judgment better than most folks, now...not around the matters of expertise I lack...or around matters that are less important...

But around the stuff that really matters most in life...I trust my judgment most...

It's a strange feeling, really...and an uneasy one...because I'm not used to thinking/feeling like this...I'm used to consulting with others...a lot...and often trusting others more, if for no other reason than to try on their outlook...

But today...and the last 6 years...has me wondering who to look up to...

I just don't trust most folks like I used to...not because they're any worse than before...but just because I think most people have really underdeveloped consciences...even and especially the self-righteous among us who are so intent on uncovering the underdeveloped consciences of others...theirs is a form of voyerism and the less righteous and vindictive tendency to prove how right they were about how shitty people around them are...or to justify their fear and panic in a world full of flawed people...

And all the people I used to look up to more regularly...my parents...my professors...Brandi...they just haven't come through in the last 6 years or so...they're fine people...they're just not great people...certainly not as great as I gave them too much credit for in the past, I think...

And I'm not afraid of anyone anymore...

And I don't know what I want...

Some company, maybe...

I'd like to work with people who care more about others than about their own convenience...

I like being with people who can be honest...with me and with themselves...we all bullshit ourselves...but some people are just better about sorting out their own bullshit from a more honest assessment of their lives...

My colleague and most of my colleagues, really, are now, and regularly, bullshitting themselves...they think of themselves as smarter, more thoughtful, more worthy of kids' and peoples' respect than they really are...

Perhaps we all are...

But I respect people more who know that than people who pretend otherwise...or perhaps are too stupid or unwilling to challenge themselves to consider otherwise...

And one thing is for sure...I am damned tired of the intellectually and morally lazy of my colleagues acting like their rationalizations for their laziness are really the same as doing better than me...I am tired of being everything but the kind of shithead to kids that my colleagues would like me to be and having it held against me because they just can't take two seconds of their precious time to think harder about how we handle things...

I am tired of working so damned hard at taking my own conscience seriously and being condescended by those who never in their lives have tried to do so as seriously...

I feel very alone, these days, is how I really feel, when it comes down to it...

I think life, for an awful lot of folks, is a game where getting the most for yourself and covering your ass is the objective...and responsibility is to be avoided...even in your own heart...for fear of having to face what shitheads that makes us...

A lot of this is due to how harsh the consequences can be for taking responsibility...but most people won't take responsibility for this, either, so it's not like there's any way out of this thing without someone taking responsibility...a lot of people taking responsibility...
I think most people are like my kids...full of themselves for no good goddamned reason...

Kids can be an arrogant lot...they think they can do anything, no matter how little they know...and they're always convinced of their own righteousness...always...no matter how much in the wrong they are...

And most adults are the same, as it turns out...

And all I want is a little company...for people to face up to their shitheadedness just enough to consider, just maybe, being better...

I'm becoming concerned that that is asking too much of most people...who are more concerned with not feeling bad about themselves than with being better people...my general feeling about that sentiment is too fuckin' bad...

But maybe social conservatives are right...maybe people are just too shitty to face up to that, themselves, most of the time, and so they must have all of their impulses restrained...

And if that is the case, I really can't see what area of life should not be restrained...why not marital fidelity?...why not heterosexuality and homosexuality?...why not pornography?...why not oral or anal or non-missionary sex?...why not who you marry or who you have sex with, including race, ethnicity, and religion?...why not restricting goofy religions?...why not state control over the economy?...why not regulate speech or thought?...

If people really can't be trusted with these things, why would we keep our hands off?...

If we are to be trusted more than our neighbors with regulating his life, why would we need any limits at all on that capacity?...

The truth is that if we really believe that people need to be regulated to do the right thing, we're either too pussy to be theocrats or too pussy to be communists...either way, not too flattering...

Because, right now, my country...the world...is sounding suspiciously like the Palestinians...suspicious of and cynical about everything...never satisfied with enough autocracy and force to solve their problems...fucking up their own ambitions and never taking any responsibility for it...and all the while waiting for the right strongman to finally make everything right...

Come to think of it...it sounds like every society since the beginning of fuckin' time...

And, really...how can you respect people who act like that?...and more importantly, how can they respect themselves?

I won't be pressuring my colleague to change her mind...her conscience is more important than my need to be right about sticking by this kid...

But goddamnit it would be nice to work with people who take their consciences more seriously than they take their TV viewing...

Education is about challenging ourselves...and challenging each other, constructively...

But most people avoid it like the plague, even as they sing its praises, because they prefer the pander of television and music and movies to the challenge of education...

Like math, Barbie might say, education is hard...challenge is hard...and most people spend their whole lives trying to avoid both...

And days like this one I wonder why the fuck I take that challenge so seriously when most people could really give two shits...

That includes the student in this situation...and the teacher...

And I just don't understand why I give such a shit about the whole situation when the two people involved clearly don't themselves...

Love,
Ben

The failures and limits of power...

A very quick and brief reflection on the failures and limits of power...

I listened to a story on NPR coming into work, this morning, that I thought well illustrated the failures and limits of power and firm assertions of authority to solve problems that need collaboration...

The story (which I'm not finding on their webpage, this morning) detailed the power battle between a local Native tribe along the Canadian border and a Canadian corporation that does business north of the border and has likely polluted waters that have run downstream...

The Canadian company says that it wants to work in good faith to clean up the waters after they've studied the issue and has evaluated the risk involved...the tribe wants the EPA to assert authority over the Canadian company and force them to clean up the waters...

The problem is...the EPA doesn't likely have jurisdiction over the Canadian company...even as a Federal court and a Federal Appeals Court assert that they do...assert all you want, the Canadian company seems to have been saying to the tribe and to the courts...there is no jurisdiction...the pollution happens north of the border and the last time they and I looked, that was Canadian territory, not U.S. territory...

The company appears to be in good faith...and no assertions of authority have led to any clean-up...the EPA is doing the sensible thing, right now, which is negotiating and working with the company, where active collaboration will likely yield a far better result than any assertion of authority...

But the tribe just can't get off of it...

No matter how much their strategy has failed...

Jurisdictions are created to limit authority for just this reason, actually...because of the avarice of those who wield authority...

It's kind of funny to me just how so many people enamoured with the law and with power and authority seem to never respect its limits...once they have it, they want to wield it wherever they think they should get their way...

Lord Acton had a phrase for that kind of thing...

Power corrupts...and absolute power corrupts absolutely...

And the whole purpose of democratic authority and governance was to set limits on those who would wield it...

You wouldn't know that from democratic practice over the last 6 years, at least, or so...because everyone seems to think that democracy is a tool for their power-hunger more than principles to limit it...the Nazis thought that too and the Weimar democracy became their tool without a more mature idea of what democracy constitutes...

Thank God for democracy is my thinking over these last 6 miserable years...thank God that there are checks and balances in place for all parties to be accountable to...not because they resolve problems...they don't...but because they limit the ability of those who would wield authority to do so without limits and to persistently ignore how and when they don't solve problems...

It's amazing to me how many people seek out power and authority and ignore and refuse to take responsibility for its use and for its failures...ironic, because the whole point of authority to is promote responsible action...

All too human...and the most important reason to take democratic principles seriously, and not just as sidelines to our big ambitions...

I have work to do:):)...have a great week, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

Maybe some final loving words about Brandi...

I've been feeling hurt, this week...so that's the context for everything I've written...

I'm dissappointed with how Brandi has handled things between us...I also have been fairly hurt, as it turns out...

It's not fair to say that I have lost all respect for Brandi...I've lost some respect for her because Brandi's loyalty to friendship was probably her most endearing quality...and because her commitment to being strong was more real than in many women I had met...meaning Brandi didn't equate strong with being a bitch...she was strong because of how big her heart was/is...and it clearly did make her more authentically strong...

I do think that, at some level, Brandi gave into the foolish notion that strength means being a dick or a bitch or giving into a world of cynicism...so many choices she's made in the last 5 years make me suspect that...which is unfortunate, an easy and common mistake to make, and all too human...

If strength was found in how shitty we treat people, Hitler and the Hutus and the Serbs would all qualify as our strongest people...I mean how much more shitty can you treat people than with genocide...

But strength is not found in how shitty we treat people...how tough we get with them, in a more aggressive way, unless it's absolutely necessary and still then as least possible as we can manage...

Strength is found in how well we treat people...and how high we set our ideals and our standards for ourselves and then live up to that example, as much as possible, and give others' room to live up to better examples themselves...

Strength is found in the most honest, most compassionate, smartest ways that we govern ourselves and then offer an example to others, with lots of room for failure and mistakes but with a commitment to always getting better...

Brandi was and is one of the best examples that I have ever met in my life...she was and is better than many of my best professors, and I've always regarded her is one of my finest teachers...

As long as I knew her (and I imagine still today, despite my hurt and disappointment with how she's dealt with me) Brandi has been one of the finest people I've ever met...she's got a heart of gold...for real...which is kind of rare, as it turns out...though all of us are working on it, I think...

Brandi has been the one person that when I wanted to live a life committed to high ideals (not a life of perfection, which doesn't and will never exist...my life has been full of hypocrisy, with a commitment on my part to overcome my weaknesses and take responsibility for my mistakes, as much as possible and reasonable...but my life is also committed to still aspiring for high ideals, even as I fall short...and I try to provide ample room for everyone else to do the same)...

Brandi has been the one person who has most supported me in those ideals...

My professors at KU were great, despite our conflicts and differences...as were most of my professors at WSU...and my current professors at Washburn...

But they just didn't have much on Brandi...because, untainted by a life of disappointment and cynicism, I suppose, she was just more genuinely committed to a life of high ideals of anyone I had met...

In grad school, Brandi and I, both, lived through much disappointment and cynicism...me, in particular, ironically...after the Clinton impeachment hearings, I was beginning to lose faith in the possibility of an American democracy driven around anything but power, and certainly around higher ideals or better ideas...and I'm sure I talked both my dreams of politics and political think-tanks and Brandi's dreams of being the first female Jewish President of the United States down with me...

But the wonderful thing that came out of that experience was that it became so much clearer to me how so many of the most important aspirations that we have for ourselves and one another come out of our personal and professional commitments in our own lives, rather than out of efforts by government and the political system...

I hadn't given up on high ideals...I just saw the playing field differently...I started to realize that it mattered more how each of us lives our lives than anything that government does or does not do...

And the real power of education is that it is a life of on-going reflection and experience and study and learning...that this is the reason why education is the most important foundation for a society...because it is the surest and most important means of self-governance in a free society...in a society that needs us to learn from our mistakes...because it is the learning that allows us to adapt to new and old realities and to improve the ways that we solve new and old problems...

As it concerns being better people, a friend of mine, recently, has helped me see that the key to self-reflection in this respect is that it allows us to see how we are or are not living up to our ideals or principles...how we are all hypocrits...which was Twain's genius...helping us all see that while keeping our emotional defenses low with a great sense of humor and a lot of compassion for our weaknesses, especially the weakness of self-righteous condemnation of our weaknesses...Brandi hasn't all of a sudden become a bad person when she's been one of the best I've known...

I've just been hurt and disappointed with how I've been cut out of her life...I genuinely love and care about Brandi...I genuinely want her to be happy...and I genuinely want to let her go so that she can be happy...no matter how hurt or disappointed I might get in the process...

It's just a bitch working through that shit...it hurts like all hell...and it's the hardest shit to do in life, of course...there is no harder...not in my experience...and it just takes a lot of me wading through my own weak and painful responses, I suppose, before I can get to stronger responses...

That's life, I suppose...that's how we grow...that's how we learn...and that is how the bulk of individual and cultural human evolution -- outside of biological evolution, which is more random and much less frequent, I think -- occurs...

That's why I'm so confident in higher ideals and better ideas...because they are the only things that get us out of the messes we face as long as we don't learn the bigger lessons...the big messes remain with us until the big lessons are learned...and those lessons become our higher ideals and better ideas...

As the Times On-Line, a brilliant conservative paper out of Great Britain, recently wrote...that is the challenge of the Middle East and Lebanon, right now...for the more mature democracies in the world to live up to their high ideals and put forth the logistical commitments, like troops for a U.N. peacekeeping force, to help resolve the current crisis in Lebanon and to develop a workable peace between Israel and her neighbors to the North and, as Kofi Annan has argued, to give breathing space for a political process in Lebanon to draw down long-term hostilities between Lebanon and Israel...

The great challenge of life on the highest ideals is living up to them, as much as is reasonably possible...there are many places in my life, and one in particular, where I have not lived up, generally because I'm not confident that its' reasonably possible...I may be wrong about that, but that's my judgment, as of now...

Perhaps Brandi feels the same way...but her dilemna seems weak to me because I already had to face it...I spent 5 years facing the very difficult pain that came with our break-up...as much as anything to maintain our friendship...and now Brandi has foregone the friendship so she wouldn't have to deal with the pain and the frustration and God knows what else...

If Brandi's choice is one of more determined weakness, then the sadder tragedy of her not wanting to be friends is that I would still want to be friends with her, even as I would respect her less, because I have a ton of friends that I love and care about, even as I don't respect all of their choices...We all do, I assume...But it's our love and support and belief in one another, no matter who we are or what beliefs we have or choices we make that makes us whole...that keeps us together in a larger human family rather than dividing us into our weaker enclaves of pettiness and hurtfulness...

Whose better...whose smarter...whose got the right religion...whose got the right gender...the right race...the right ethnicity... the right education...yada, yada, yada...

What I see now is that moderation, the political center is the holding ground for those who aspire for humanity to be better...to see itself as more universally similar than different and at odds in a million different ways...

And our truest center is in our commitment to one another...as people...as individuals...as members of our larger human family...

There is no religion or ideology or nationality or race or gender or ethnicity or elite status or anything that will somehow prove to be the best or the most omniscient or the most universalizing beyond its more exclusive domain...

And even higher ideals can be used to divide us if it means making people pretend like they do not harbor the weaknesses they harbor rather than accept their own weaker, less higher-minded natures even as we aspire to be better...

Humanity's fate, now and always, lies in its capacity to accept its', our, my humanity and the humanity of those around me...higher ideals...and lesser weaknesses...

To love ourselves and one another for our weaknesses, as much as for our strengths...genuinely...better over time...

Brandi needs and deserves my love, even as I am disappointed with her for giving into this weakness that has been so painful for me...so does her husband, Greg...and so does everyone I meet, as much as I can persistently muster...

When I think about it, that is the proudest thing I can say about this blog...that, as much as possible, this has been my opportunity to share my weaknesses as much my strengths...to share my humanity, more than just high ideals...to demonstrate how the aspiration to be a good or a great person does not involve a route of perfection or consistent high-mindedness...that it often involves weakness and failure and mistakes and crassness and low-mindedness...for everyone...our fears about sharing those less ideal qualities only make us mute about their reality...

We want our children to aspire to be better than us...and we're afraid to share with them our own failures and weaknesses...

As strong as she's been in her life, Brandi is a human being...she's weak just like everyone else...her weakness in this case, is very common, though a weakness, nonetheless...like all of my weaknesses, that shouldn't be an excuse for weakness...but giving into to weakness is fairly common, really...and my experience is that, generally, it's a good idea, ironically...so the taboo and the fear of the weakness wear off...

So maybe...as much is this hurts right now and has all week...

Maybe there is good to come out of this...I trust Brandi to take responsibility for all of this, at some point...

It's just hard amidst the pain and disappointment...And during a period when avoiding responsibility seems to be more common than taking it, so often, largely because we are so harsh and ugly with one another when we want to take responsibility...

I think Brandi is a good person...at times, she's been a great person...and I think we're just still getting worked out whatever we need to get worked out between us...sometimes together, sometimes apart...From bad to worse, as the Economist writes...sometimes our propensity to screw up takes us from bad to worse...until we can face up to our failures...

And the most important reason to have confidence that we will take responsibility and begin to see the light...is because we can't move forward until we do...

Love,
Ben

Disappointment...

I've got a million things to do, today...I'm still exhausted, even though I tried to get to sleep early last night to make up for lost sleep...I'll be playing catch up again this Saturday and then hopefully I can more regularly get sleep thereafter...

Last night I had a paper to work on...but I couldn't really get much done...just feeling disappointed with Brandi, right now...
It's one thing to screw up and to take responsibility for it...it's a whole other thing to take the weak/lame route, altogether, and to consistently avoid facing up...

Brandi's been taking the weak route for quite a while, now...I'm much clearer about that, now...yesterday was just the first time that she shared it so openly...

And I'm just feeling disappointed because I expected so much more out of her, I suppose...

We all have choices to make in our lives...sometimes we take the high road...sometimes we take the low...all of us...the trick is that with the important stuff, do we get in the habit of taking the low road and avoiding the challenge to be better...or do we face up to our weaker natures and become stronger from the experience...

Nothing wrong with taking the low road for awhile, even on the important things...as long as it's part of a journey that involves facing up to that and digging deep for strength...

The problem is when we start lying to ourselves...telling ourselves that we're doing better than we really are...or that people should listen to us or follow our example more than we really deserve because we just can't find it in ourselves to live a better example...

It's a common problem...it's also a serious one, at some point, around most of the most important issues that humanity faces...

In this situation, it just leaves me disappointed, right now...not really hurt...I think I've experienced plenty of that...just disappointed...that Brandi has so thoroughly taken up the lame route...

And that this particular lame route involves cutting me out so that she can maintain whatever weakness that drives her around it...

It's just a very different Brandi than my best friend in college aspired to be...it's like watching Mike Coupland leave his friends so he can go chase popularity...it doesn't offer him the happiness he was hoping for, of course...but it's sad losing friends as they chase illusive dreams...

I doubt the money or the seclusion will offer Brandi what she thinks it will...but it's her life to make choices with...

I'm just sad that a person who has been such quality for much of her life has chosen a weaker road...

And this morning I'm just dealing with the disappointment...

Love,
Ben

Closure...

I finally received an email back from Brandi, today...

She said she didn't want a friendship, anymore...she'd put it behind her...

I think I finally lost all respect for Ms. Fisher...her loyalty to friendship was her best quality...and without it, she just doesn't have that much to offer...

It doesn't even really hurt...it's just seriously disappointing...there's just not much to Brandi without loyalty to friendship...without it, everything else just seems kind of pointless...

You ever had a friend who left you for popularity or money or something else that they wanted?

I did...in 9th grade...you know why he eventually comes back and apologizes, I think?...because his life becomes such a mess that he wants some reassurance that there is one person in the world who loves him, no matter what...and I do...

Brandi will be back...when she returns, I've got some apologies due...

In the meantime, this is the best closure that I could have possibly have found...

Because there's not much to her friendship, at this point, to want to hold onto...not until she comes to terms with what a jerk she's been...

I think I lost all respect for Ms. Fisher, today...

And all of a sudden it's not such a bad thing to be have my life...

Because a life like the one Brandi's chosen just seems so completely bankrupt in every way that matters...

Love,
Ben

Commitments that I owe my teachers...

After an exhausting then exhilaratingly productive day...and after recognizing all the various commitments that my teachers made to me throughout the years...I decided on the way home that I have some commitments that I owe some of my teachers...

I'm leaning heavily in favor of a Ph.D. in policy, right now, given a couple of my commitments...

Mr. Perry, my junior year trigonometry teacher, gave me a 1-on-1 tutorial in trigonometry in what I can only imagine was his planning hour...I ended up dropping Calculus second semester my senior year, which is the reason why he gave me the tutorial...so I figure I owe it to Mr. Perry to finish at least one semester of Calculus and finish up the sucker...

Which will support very nicely my other very important reason to do a Ph.D. in policy, which is to seriously brush up on statistics (which, after a long and exciting conversation with two math students at a party Saturday night) to be much more prepared for more serious social scientific research and more serious interpretation of statistical data and prepare the strongest possible empirical research (and experiments, when appropriate)...

For my book, I think I'll need between now and writing that book I will need to do serious depth study in both international policy and counterterrorism, to prepare and deal with the strongest case against my ideas in international policy and counterterrorism, and criminology, to prepare and deal with the strongest case against my ideas in crime and domestic policy (I will need the help of Carson, Bond, Brian White, Brian, John, and that smart-as-shit debater from UNI and now Illinois State from the ISU camp, Chris Leland, and other folks to help me build the strongest countercases, and to test arguments in favor of limits on power, free will and morality discussions as a function of realist policy discussions, and my theoretical work around least possible necessary aggression, if they might help me out)...

So a Ph.D. in policy might come in handy:):)...

I plan on writing articles/chapters ahead of applying for Ph.D. programs so that I can guarantee entry into a program of my choice and to hopefully substantially beef up my preparedness for grad school...

I owe all of this and to finish my senior Honors' thesis from my undergrad at Wichita State -- as a publishable article in political history on the first Federal education legislation touching schools below the college-grade, the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 -- to Dr. David Ericson, my favorite prof from undergrad and someone who has been waiting to read a finished copy of that thesis for almost 10 years now (ok, I have a feeling it hasn't been keeping him up at nights:):)...

I also think that I owe Mr. Jestmore, my high school forensics, debate, and drama teacher, and EMU theater, here in Lawrence, to which I belong, to go ahead and work on the writing workshop next summer and to write (and maybe act in) at least one really quality publishable play/screenplay for production/filming...Mr. Jestmore always wanted me to be an actor and was really disappointed when I told him that I had decided to do forensics in college rather than drama, for which he secured me a scholarship when I was an undergrad...so I figure I owe him some substantial contribution to the theater world in return for his countless hours of devotion to my learning and growth and development as a young man and as an actor...

I also think I owe it, over the course of my lifetime, to write (and maybe sing) at least one really quality song to Mrs. Johns, my 7th and 8th grade music teacher who so thoroughly believed in my singing/musical abilities, and Doris Prater, my 9th grade music teacher, who turned our rag-tag, low-income Truesdell Junior High School choir into a powerhouse Worlds of Fun competition sensation and a hell of a stage choir...

Finally, I think I owe it to Tom and my education profs at KU, my teachers throughout my life, including and especially Conrad Jestmore -- whose commitment to libertarian/classical liberal virtues have had an indelible impact on my life -- and Dave Ericson, the smartest professor I've ever worked with, and to my principal Dr. Ogburn, my other favorite principal in my life, Keith Wilson, and all of the people who have dedicated time to helping me to become the outstanding teacher that I have become and am becoming to both write abundantly, for the rest of my life, about the significance of education in a liberal democracy in an authentically and classically liberal democratic tradition that I hope will rival my other favorite education scholar, John Dewey...and to teach in the most inclusive, open, free thinking, free expressing, and freedom-supporting university and department that I can find...where I can work with the broad range of students that I work with now and where, as much as possible, everything else always takes a back seat to the ever developing ideals of a free and democratic education...

And I owe it to Jim Henson, Roald Dahl, Mark Twain and the million of other great childrens' authors/film directors/entertainers to several brilliant stories and books for children, since this may be the legacy that counts the most, anyway...

I owe it to all my teachers to take full advantage to the quality education they afforded me for free and at affordable prices at all of the quality public schools and universities (and the private prep school I attended the first three years of my grammar school) to do only the biggest and best things with my education...with everything they dedicated to and sacraficed for my education...

And I owe it to myself...to take full advantage of all of the opportunities that they and life has afforded me...
So much for taking it easy as a teacher, huh?:):):)...

Yeah...setting the bar high for teachers -- as much as for thinkers or just average folks -- won't be a bad legacy to leave, either:):)...

I better get some sleep if any of these dreams are to become reality...

Have a great week, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

A long day and a discussion about redemption...

It's been a really fuckin' long day...kids were out of control, today...teachers were already talking about kicking some kids out into more restrictive school settings...and I'm really exhausted by the whole thing...

Today was my most confrontational with students...I have one student, in particular, whose been testing all sorts of limits and I decided, today, that I was tired of the games and students playing like they didn't hear or they just don't understand how to do things like be quiet during a computerized district assessment or to follow instructions after the hundredth of time of mouthing off about nothing in particular except to prove that they don't have to do anything a teacher says...

So today, I was my most direct...

What do you need to do when I say be quiet? Be quiet...

What do you need to do when I give you an instruction? Do it...

And when kids couldn't follow those instructions, I made clear that they were not going to find their way back into my room until I am confident that they can accept that though I do everything in my power not to lord authority over kids...that if they can't accept my authority, then they won't get back into my class until they are clear about who's the boss, when push comes to shove...

And that if they can't make it in a room where they are given as much room as I give them -- which is a lot -- then they can go try to make it in other rooms, if teachers will let them in, which, in many of their cases, may not be possible...

I have three students, right now (I have a fourth in the wings, but who is laying low right now) who are all either going to get clear very soon that I am the boss and if they have a problem with that they are going to have a tough time in my class (I don't lord this over students, at all, but these three boys are all way out of control with their behavior and with their disrespect...of me and of other students)...

Actually, my more serious concern is that they figure out that they have pissed off every other teacher...two of them teachers are talking about shipping them off, somewhere, while I speak on behalf of their lame, no-responsibility-taking asses and as they perpetually take it and me and the rest of their teachers for granted...as it should be, to some degree...they are kids, after all...but they each need to wise up, quick, because I'm losing my patience with them...there is always a well from which I can perpetually draw from on patience...but that doesn't mean that we aren't going to have some confrontation, in the meantime...

As I told one kid, today...he better wise up quick...because I'm his best friend in the school, right now, and teachers often go against my advice to stick with kids...and he keeps taking my advocacy for him for granted, he's going to find himself in an after-school program, a self-contained situation, or a more restrictive school very quickly...and there's not much I'm going to be able to do for him...

I have nothing to do with those kinds of recommendations...I don't believe in them, as a general but very committed rule in my professional practice...shipping kids off means you failed...and I don't like to fail...so I keep them with me as much as possible, often as much because I know that I will stick by kids and by high expectations for them long after others will give up on them...

Why some kids are so goddamned stupid I will never know, sometimes...

But what this kid hasn't figured out, yet, is that there is only way forward...and if he can't take that way, then his world is going to be full of trouble, from me and from others, until he gets his shit together...

Today was me at my toughest and most direct...either you get straight that you're behavior's going to turn around in my room...or you may find yourself trying to make it with teachers or employers who are going to show you about a 1000th of the patience that I'm going to show for you...

But knowing what I know about the world outside of school...how often we fail to support and challenge such kids and parallel adults from changing their thinking and their behavior and what a major fuckin' pain in the ass this is for the world, at large...I just can't give up on kids very easily, knowing that I can have an important impact on them, now, that could do a lot to promote safer and more productive communities and people living in them later on...

I've been listening, a lot, to the discussions about punishment and redemption on NPR and other news channels and reading about it in other news media, lately...

And the whole time I keep thinking...

"Is anyone going to take responsibility for Martin Andersen's death?"

And when we get clearer about how all the talk about forcing behavior on people had everything to do with Martin's death...
What punishment would be appropriate for our society? How long should we hold out on redemption until we can take responsibility for our role in that 14-year-old kid's death?

My talk and my willingness to confront disrepectful behavior was all that was tough, today...and I'm completely clear that it is the only thing that has much of a chance of getting through with the kids I deal with...kids like Martin...except for the love and connection and genuine concern that undergirds that tough talk...

But it's pretty damned clear to me that the reason why the folks like Martin's boot-camp guards can't take responsibility for his death is because they are scared of the consequences...jail can keep us safe...but I'm pretty clear that jail as a form of retribution does very little to help anyone...and if you doubt that, I suggest you spend more time in the inner city where an awful lot of folks have been to jail, but very rarely do any of them report jail pricking their conscience which is what has to change if their behavior is going to change...

Most people just debate this issue too much in the abstract, with very little real reference point for how people related to jail and prison sentences and what actually changes behavior, I think...and God knows that if the inner city is not evidence that jail does not change behavior (it can be a source for pricking the conscience, but, more often than not, it just makes people defensive about taking responsibility...though jail is often necessary to protect people) then I do begin to wonder if and when people might ever reconsider whether this is the best path to social reform...

I have a feeling I'll be waiting a long time for an apology for Martin...

Because we are a society that is far better at preaching responsibility than taking it...

And that is the hard truth about us that is so hard for so many of us to face about ourselves...

So I guess it shouldn't surprise me that my students struggle with it...because so does the whole goddamned world, for goodness sakes...

So I guess I have a lot of work to do to help make that responsibility easier for everyone to take...

I'm working on it...

Love,
Ben

It's No Use...

I was wrong...

This was a failed experiment...

Trying to let Brandi go...

Not having Brandi around as a friend leaves me feeling raw and hurt, inside...

But trying to ignore those feelings doesn't leave me feeling any better...it just leaves me feeling more raw...

I cried about it to Melissa...

And I felt a million times better...

Life's gonna be ok...I hope Brandi's doing well...

Louis Armstrong, by the way, is a great balm for heartache...

Love, Ben

Letting go...

I've been listening to Keith Urban and You'll Think of Me all morning...

Letting go of Brandi as a friend has been almost as painful as letting go of her as a girlfriend...ideally, I'd love to say that losing her friendship was harder than letting go of the relationship, but the reality is that the break-up was just more painful...which is exactly what makes the whole situation so complicated, I'm fully aware...

But I'm just tired of the games...I'm tired of the pretending like things are better than they are...I'm tired of acting like Brandi is being more of a friend than she really is...

I have zero expectations for Brandi, anymore...I'm sure her life is just fine...and letting go of someone who has been your very best friend is no mean feat...but I just can't pretend, anymore, that she's really being a better friend than she is...at best, she's a casual acquaintance, at this point, that I just happen to have a lot of history with...

I've never let go of a friend like this before...I've never had reason to...I've never been as close as Brandi and I were, worked as hard at the relationship, and then abruptly had no contact...in the past, either I've had mutual falling outs, sometimes having others afraid that we had fallen out more than we actually had, and retouched base years later or I've worked hard and just decided to put the friendship aside until I could trust that the friends involved were in good faith with me...

When I lost my first best friend, Mike Coupland, to his insecurities about being popular and being as successful as me in speech, a fight where I got my ass kicked, and a two-year hiatus before we were debate partners my senior year of high school (Mike and I would lose touch at the end of debate season when he backed out of Regionals at the last minute until he called me from Alaska where he was stationed with the Air Force and when he returned to Wichita with a wife and a daughter when I was still at Wichita State University)...

When I lost my first closest friend...it was hard...

Mike and I spent all of our time together in junior high and high school...multiple sleep-overs, even on weeknights, our parents were so enamoured with our friendship...we got caught together my freshman year in Haysville joyriding in my dad's car...Mike got grounded...I got no punishment and one of best conversations I had with my dad during my teens...

Mike and I would stay up late making crass jokes about hairlips and wood-eyes, what everyone we knew must say when they woke up in the morning, eating potato chips and drinking milk, and just talk about everything under the sun that could possibly spark the curiosity of two 14-year-old boys...

Mike was the first person I ever developed that close a bond with...
And when we lost that, it hurt but I never felt anything like this...
I don't want to feel this...I don't want to feel like my happiness is so dependent on the choices of another person...

I've lived through enough pain and tears for one person to last a lifetime...

You would think it would serve as a deterrent to risking it again...
But that hasn't at all been the case...the irony is that this is the time in my life when I've had the most attention from the opposite sex...the time when I've been most open to love...but it's also been the time when I just haven't been able to find love...no matter how hard I've tried...

And I'm just holding out for something true...

I don't ask girls to date...because my figuring is that if I can't find a friend who I care about as much and more than Brandi and make a relationship with that person, then it really won't ever be love...it will always live in the shadow of what I had with Brandi, as every relationship I've had since that time has lived in my heart...
But that hasn't been because I dated Brandi...I've dated plenty of people and not felt the feelings of loss I've felt the last 5 years...
It's because Brandi's and my friendship was the closest connection I've ever felt with another person...

So letting go of that is hardly an easy thing...

But I just can't live like this anymore...

And I just have to come to terms with the fact that Brandi's choices, for better or for worse, are not only her own...but that she's just not interested in my friendship, anymore...she thought at one point that she could be friends no matter what happened, no matter who we ended up dating or marrying...and she just discovered that it wasn't a promise she felt like she could keep...

And that the only end to this road of constant pain and heartache is just letting go completely...

And hoping I never see her again...because the superficiality in that encounter, absent some kind of substantial resolution of the heartache between us, would just be one more painful reminder of just how little I matter in her life, anymore...

And no matter how painful that is to face...I just don't need that in my life, anymore...

Melissa just had a reporter from the University Daily Kansan call about the 10-minute play festival that we're doing with EMU here at the Lawrence Arts Center (my performances have sucked in a serious way, by the way:)...and she was so sweet...she was just like, "If she wants to call me back, that would be fine. And if she doesn't want to call me back, that would fine too."

And that's how I feel about Brandi...I'm tired of the superficial contact...and I'm heartbroken by no contact, at all...but I just don't need the heartache in my life, anymore...

It's just so true...if you love something, you've got to learn to let it go...
If you love someone and you can't let them go, they'll never be their own...

And I don't want to own anyone...ever...

Love,
Ben

The problem with getting old...

We just got out of a meeting with some teachers...

It's so funny how generational issues impact the way that people look at things...

We have one teacher on the team who is really upset about grills, the metal carvings that some people (and some kids) wear on their teeth...

I have a ton of friends who have them...I think they're silly...and definitely way more expense than they are worth...but I just figure it's up to people to figure out how they want to look (I'm not a big fan of our school dress code, but I encourage kids to follow it since, of course, I think the education is more important than how we dress)...and I figure if you want to look foolish or shocking, then that's up to you...you deal with the consequences of that and I don't give a shit either way...

But teachers are up in arms...as are most older people about so much in youth culture that they often just don't understand is exactly what motivates such behavior...

Kids do this stuff for self-expression...but they as often do it to get just such a reaction...especially from their parents and teachers, who they, generally, want off their backs...so when they don't get one, then you and they can get focussed on the stuff that really matters in life...

It's so funny...because people don't take the time to think about how their reactions fuel many of the very things that they are so upset about (my friendship with Brandi comes to mind for me, here, though I think I've just kind of given up on being friends with Brandi, at this point, since I just don't have time for the games, anymore), they reinforce the very behavior that they're trying to deal with...

Hillary Clinton, quite the stuffy mom, doesn't realize that her desire to regulate video games like Grand Theft Auto is exactly what motivates the creation and consumption of such video games...the more taboo she makes it, the more popular it becomes...

And so it goes and so it always has gone and so it always will go until people get a clue and stop fueling the very shit they're so concerned about...

In the meantime...I felt resolved, coming out of this meeting...to not become old...

Obviously, I have to age...but I no interest in sounding like such an old nag...

Kids and adults, now and forever, will always make their own choices...it's far more effective to appeal to peoples' reason and conscience, generally, especially in the long term, than to try to regulate their behavior...the latter always being in the moment and as long as there is someone around to enforce regulation, and eventually often wearing off, absent a matter of conscience or reason at stake, and then still wearing off, often, even then...and still more often creating resistance, rebellion, and fueling the very behaviors that regulators are trying to address...

It's the best thing about being young and having a young spirit...letting people be who they want to be...which is exactly what they're going to do, anyway, whether you like it or not...it's just that they are more likely, by far, in my experience, to be closer to better expectations for themselves, the less we regulate them and the more we appeal to their consciences...

What we currently do clearly doesn't work, if our concern is that we don't want to change ships midstream...

And perhaps we're more concerned with self-righteous stands than tangible results...

If so, we should just get used to self-righteous stands that yield no or worse results (better results if we appeal to conscience)...

But just for me, personally...I just can't imagine being that stuffy...and being so concerned with the splinters in other peoples' eyes, as my homie Jesus of Nazareth used to say, than with the beams in our own...

Love,
Ben

The most important and credible challenges to the thesis of my work...

I've said in earlier posts that the most significant challenge to my thesis of least possible necessary aggression and the way I interpret that for domestic policy -- namely, that a more libertarian domestic policy on issues like guns and drugs would both better deal with concerns around both of these issues, sponsoring more responsible gun ownership, drug use, and facilitate citizens' abilities to deal constructively with more serious problems in both arenas and local, state, and federal government's ability to both diminish violence associated with both trades and diminish support for dangerous groups associated with both drugs and guns, as just two examples of the promise that domestic policies committed to more individual freedom offer to our ability to deal with domestic problems -- is found among criminologists who attribute lower violent crime rates (up until 2005, that is) to creative policing and the ability of law enforcement to use drug laws, gun laws, and the death penalty to provide deterence and succesful prosecution of violent crime...

It's the strongest counter-argument I've identified to my general thesis of least possible necessary aggression in domestic policy...and an argument that I will need to spend much time dealing with and thinking about and soul-searching on (if I'm wrong about my thesis, it's better to abandon it than to keep defending a poor thesis, if I'm intellectually honest, that is, and not just self-righteously defending a thesis that I've invested some stake in)...

Tonight, I think I encountered the strongest counterargument to the thesis of least possible necessary aggression in international policy and counterterrorism efforts, where I have been focussing and honing the thesis most seriously in the last few years...

Daniel Byman is a Brookings scholar, an associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University -- the most reputed international policy program in the country -- who wrote a November/December 2003 article for Foreign Affairs that I happened to run across, tonight, that argues for a political offensive against Hezbollah three years before Israel's military offensive against the Lebanese terrorist group...

http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/byman20031101.pdf

I don't agree with Byman's thesis that pressuring Syria would successfully dismantle Hezbollah, but I think it is the strongest argument for the use of the political or military pressure for counter-terrorism efforts -- distinct from efforts to delegitimize Hezbollah and to wean political support for its militant wing through political representation and moderation of its political wing in the Lebanese parliament; to confront it with multilateral and internationally credible military and law enforcment efforts to arrest militant leaders when possible and kill when necessary; or to engage in peace processes that would seek to disarm Hezbollah either forcibly or voluntarily through a legimated political process between Israel and Lebanon and within the Lebanese democratic government -- to resolve this issue, with Iran and Syria, and with the war on terrorism, generally...

The reason why I think this is the strongest counter-argument is because pressuring Syria has been associated with the most promising results in Middle Eastern democratic efforts...Iran has largely resisted American and European pressure to end its nuclear program...as has North Korea, even after successful negotiations correlated with U.S. pressure during earlier Six-Party talks (though I believe more accurately correlated with South Korean diplomacy to bring North Korea back to the table)...Iraq is a terrible mess of insurgency against the new democratic government and the American presence and sectarian violence that many analysts are concerned may be devolving into civil war...Syria and Iran have responded to implicit threats to invade with support and prompting for Hezbollah's most recent killing and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers (while Hezbollah's political wing was unaware of its militant wing's plans to engage Israel, Iran and Syria were helping to coordinate its efforts)...

But the one ray of hope in the Middle East when it comes to the use of political or military pressure was in the correlation between Washington's pressure on Syria in 2005 to exit Lebanon, and Syria's subsequent withdrawal and the room for the current Lebanese democratic goverment...

Now...I don't agree that Washington's pressure is what prompted Syria to leave...I think, more likely, grass-roots citizen protests of a Syrian military and political presence precipitated a Syrian withdrawal -- as with the fall of Eastern European and Soviet communist regimes -- but, then again, I'm just a naive idealist:):)...

There is no doubt that Washington was pressuring Syria around the time that it pulled out and that many Lebanese see the United States as an unlikely ally because of their support for a Syrian withdrawal...

What is in doubt is whether American pressure caused the pull-out...and Daniel Byman makes a really brilliant case, in this article, for why American pressure can exercise much leverage with Syria, and, he believes, how the Administration can use that leverage to finally underrmine Hezbollah (a case that is easier to make, today, given how Hezbollah has undermined its own political support in Lebanon with its most recent adventures in Israel and the subsequent response they sparked)...

The reason why I don't agree with Byman's case even as I think he is a seriously brilliant mother-fucker -- you gotta read this article to get a feel for why I feel so stupid next to this guy; largely because he clearly knows so much more about this region and terrorism, generally, than I do and I should probably feel ashamed to even dare to doubt the wisdom of someone so much more clearly qualified to have this discussion than I am; my case is a more general one that isn't based out of counter-terrorism expertise, but Byman makes the case, for me at least, for why I should quickly develop one if I want to have anything credible to say on this subject -- is because the use of pressure has just been such a miserable failure in most of the cases where it has been applied, by any objective measure, by my lights...

Iran, North Korea, and Iraq (the axis of evil, itself) being the most obvious to me, though not to most international policy scholars I've read, so perhaps I really just don't know what the fuck I'm talking about...though most scholars don't seem to take Joe's ideas around soft power seriously in their articles, either, and I'm quite clear of the necessity and utility of soft power, and somehow I doubt that a lot of lesser known intellects have somehow outhunk their way around Joe because they have discovered the wisdom of more conventional pressure politics...

Where I see failure, David sees the need to remain patient..."Patient with how much failure?" is my question...but Daniel makes a brilliant case for this kind of patience, I must admit, and clearly knows so much about the region that it makes me blush that I even dare to have the conversation with the guy...

But have the conversation I must, obviously, because plenty of counterterrorism expertise has not either captured Osama Bin Laden or seriously weakened Al Queda, dismantled Hezbollah, weakened Hamas (which came to power in Palestine post-Iraq war and with the advent of the War on Terrorism, rather than being weakened) nor decreased international terrorism, unless there is some objective index that I am not aware of that indicates a reduction in terrorism that neither I or the most recent survey of terrorism experts conducted by the international policy journal Foreign Policy, which generally found that most terrorism and international policy experts believe that our vulnerability to terrorism has become more substantial rather than less, post-Iraq war and in the wake of the War on Terrorism (as well as the 2003/04 Global Terrorism Index by the World Markets Research Centre, of course, which found an increase in terrorism after the initiation of the Iraq war)...

As with President Bush's call for patience rather than rethinking strategy, I find David's and the President's desire for patience as naive and ignoring the consequences of a failing and failed policy...

But one very serious thing that David Byman has over George W. Bush and me is that he knows Middle East politics and history, and the recent history of Middle East terrorism very well...and that should certainly give someone like me pause...

And more importantly, he really does seem to understand the dynamics of terrorism and its political support in ways that I think are important if we are to develop more effective counterterrorism policy...

David's arguments and this line of reasoning, generally -- that effective pressure, political pressure with implicit pressure from threats of military action is the most likely scenario for undermining Hezbollah, and I would imagine similar scenarios that David might argue for stopping Iran's and North Korea's nuclear ambitions and pressuring for a sustainable democratic government in Iraq -- are the strongest counter-arguments to my thesis of least possible necessary aggression and all of its correlates in democratic theory and principle that I think I've encountered, thus far...

As I write this book, I don't want to take on strawmen, which is useless and intellectually dishonest...if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and if it is made more clear for me I will be the first to admit it (or at least I will try to admit it as quickly and honestly as I see it)...

I want to wrestle with the strongest counterarguments and develop good ideas, not validate ones I've just associated myself with...the latter is not only intellectually dishonest, it's foolish because stubbornly sticking by a bad idea doesn't make it any better...and certainly doesn't help anyone...

I guess you could say that instead of making an extended speech that fits my biases, that this book needs to be the most challenging debate that I can offer around this thesis...I need to consider the argument open-endedly and all of its weaknesses as well as its strengths and deal with people and arguments that have the most chance of both making and being stronger arguments as well as educating and enlarging my own thinking...

I have to say that this dude offers me significant opportunities to educate my argument...because I feel kind of dumb in the presence of his arguments...

Lots of work to do...

Ben

The practical consequences of self-righteousness for morality and politics...

I worked on a post on this topic for hours on Saturday and lost a big hunk of it...I saved most of it and will complete it ASAP...

In the meantime...

A bit of one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain, from his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to get me and you started on my first day of a brand new school year:)...

"Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry—set up straight;" and pretty soon she would say, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry—why don't you try to behave?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good."

Have a great day, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben

It's lonely, sometimes, caring about people...

I'm feeling like shit, this morning...so be warned...this is a vent...

I have three ex-girlfriends that I've written or called in the last year who have gotten married and are not returning communication...I have a couple of friends that I just got in touch with in the last few months who have not written back...

I think I've given up on a friendship with Brandi...which is breaking my heart, right now, because she was the best friend I ever had and we promised after we broke up that we would not stop talking with each other just because we met other people and now, for the first time since we broke up, I'm not sure if I'll ever hear from her again...

I would rather live with my heart open and breaking occasionally than with my heart closed for fear of having it break...

But that last one is quite the heartbreak...

I hate this world, sometimes...with all its pettiness and its defensiveness and its jealousy and its possessiveness and its bitterness and all the ways that we fuck up our own lives and the lives of people around us...

But I hate this one most of all...because Brandi really wasn't just my girlfriend...she really was the best friend I had ever had...

When we broke up, it took a long time, but I finally made my peace that we wouldn't be together, again, as a couple...but Brandi promised that we wouldn't lose our friendship...and now that seems to be gone, for all practical purposes, too...

What a fucked up world we've created, here...this world where we pretend that we've resolved problems and situations that we clearly haven't...where we pretend that we've found solutions to problems that aren't solved...where we pretend like the way that we do things makes them better when they don't...

I wish I could say I felt safe sharing this stuff with someone in my life...I share it with Melissa, but I don't think she really cares, frankly...Brandi was the person I shared this sort of stuff with...but I can't anymore, for all practical purposes...

I just sit and listen to Hootie for comfort, because I don't trust anyone else to provide it...

I guess for Brandi I was just some cute guy to spend some time with and maybe date, at some point...

But Brandi never was that to me...I didn't even think about dating her when I first met her...she was really just my best friend for a year who I didn't think about, romantically...

And had I known that this would be the consequence, I don't know if I would have dated her...I would have missed out on so much had I not...but I'm missing out on so much, now, that I did...

All I know is that any marriage or relationship that needs distance from ex's is on weak ground...I don't plan on doing that with Brandi or Jenny or Kathleen -- the three ex-girlfriends who haven't written or called back -- or any of my ex-girlfriends, in the future...and I don't care what my girlfriend or wife has to say about the matter...I don't sell out friends for love...I don't sell out friends for anything and I don't sell out anything for love or anything else, for that matter...

When Brandi and I were dating, I didn't even think twice about going to spend time with Jenny to comfort her after her divorce...and I just won't live like so many people do, scared of themselves, scared of their feelings...its weak and cowardly and I won't live like that...I don't need or want to protect myself from my feelings...or to protect anyone else from their feelings...if I'm dating someone who needs her feelings protected, she is definitely the wrong girl for me...

I guess that is the major way that I am different from a lot of people...I have no interest in living my life scared...scared of every little feeling or consequence or thought or influence or whatever that I just don't think I can handle or that I'm afraid might challenge me or that I've just convinced myself that I have to isolate myself from...

I'm just not a coward like so many people are...and I refuse to live my life like that...

Hiding behind ideology or marriage or religion or ethnicity or gender or intelligence or money or rock star status or gang affiliation or being a bad-ass or all of the million ways that people hide themselves in corners so that they don't have to reach beyond themselves and connect with people is cowardly and weak...and I have no interest in being cowardly and weak in that way...or in any way, frankly...and I have no interest in hearing peoples' excuses for why they do...why when the world gets polarized, they just give in rather than hoping and working for something bigger and better...

I'm no coward...and I don't give a shit how many people are...

Figuring out which group you belong to and who doesn't belong in your group takes no courage, at all...it is the essence of cowardice, really...and it is the polarizing tendency that has taken hold of the country and the world in the last 6 years or so...a brilliant and proud way to welcome in the 21st century, don't you think?

It's lonely and painful keeping your heart open like that, sometimes...we just had a very nice conversation about that at our school this last Friday...about how hard it is to keep saying hi to kids or teachers when they don't say hi back...how hard it is to keep your heart open to kids and people who shut their heart down...

And I just think Brandi's shut her's down to me, even though she promised she wouldn't do that...

It's so amazing to me how much courage so many adults have when they're young...how much more open their hearts are, often...and then shut them down as they get older...some people open their hearts up, more...but a lot of people just get lost in their cowardice...

But there is no progress without courage...as individuals...and as a culture...

And I'm not so tied to any friend or family member or ex-girlfriend to hang up my own learning and growth until they learn to take up more courage to promote their own learning and growth...

I'm learning that this is how all of the most serious foolishness and injustices in the world remain in our midst for so long...because, as Bobby Kennedy said...true moral courage is rare...most people will never dare to risk the rejection or approbation of their peers to demonstrate it...that's why we always look back on our ancestors and shake our heads...because courage is rare...and most people are too scared to shake loose of even the most terrible legacies for fear of looking bad to their peers...and most people are too scared to look honestly at themselves to face up to that personal legacy...

And, right now, you have cowards leading cowards...people too afraid to think for themselves following people too afraid to imagine something better...

With Brandi, I had a friend to imagine things better with...someone who believed, at one time...

And now, I'm afraid, I don't have that or much of anything with her...

Why does the world have to be so full of so much senseless tragedy?

I've dealt with a lot of it in my lifetime, like everyone else, I imagine...

But this one is taking the cake, right now...

Why do so many people grow up only to shut their hearts down?...Why do we pretend that this is what being a grown up involves?...

And most importantly...why do we think anyone, nevertheless our children, should follow our lead when we do so with such cowardice?

Maybe that's why we insist...because deep down we're afraid that maybe our lead isn't worth following...perhaps we don't deserve it...but we insist on it anyway...that may or may not fair...but working with people to be responsible for their own lives is not only a more sustainable way to supporting the learning and growth and progress of a culture...it is the way that involves more courage, because it means learning to trust people to make judgments on their own, rather than with some sense of omniscience on our or other peoples' parts...

Well, I don't insist that Brandi be my friend...if she doesn't want to be my friend, then fuck her...

I don't insist that anyone be my friend...or that anyone listen to a goddamn thing I say...

It wholly possible that I'm just completely or even substantially full of shit...

But if people don't listen because they want to be small and petty and weak, then so be it...I just don't want anyone to insist that I follow their small and petty and weak asses if they don't have the courage to be bigger...
And when people do insist...which they inevitably do...I just want them to know that they will never have my heart or mind until they live an example or have an idea worthy of following...

I don't give a shit how many times Brandi sells me out...I'll never sell her out...or any of my friends...ever...it's not in me...my door is always open...

I guess that I'm just aware, now, that I am out on this limb completely on my own, at this point...and so be it...
True friendship is extremely rare, I'm learning...perhaps it is always just beyond reach...because we are all such fuckin' cowards...

But what a lonely world it would be if there was no hope for something better...

Love,
Ben

Self-righteousness is a poor substitute for morality...

After reading Ruth Marcus' self-righteous editorial about how "soft" Hollywood has been on Mel Gibson (what I love about moralists and absolutists of every stripe is that no fear, pain, or the power to inflict it is ever enough to satiate their vindictiveness)....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/08/AR2006080800940.html

I have to say that if moralists make me choose between the the humble and moderate morality of a Mark Twain...or the never-satiated vengeance and self-righteousness of a Ruth Marcus or a Joe Lieberman or a Cynthia McKinney...

I will choose Mark Twain's decency, compassion, humor, and love for humanity any fuckin' day of the week over the self-righteous rants of any moralist or absolutist offerred up...

Moralism and absolutism are forms of power...moralists know this...that's why they hold on so tight to it...

Having humble and forgiving criticism of movies or music or politics or whatever is one thing...

Exploiting a moment of weakness from Mel Gibson and not being able to move on just makes you an asshole...

And I don't care what church or temple you go to...

Do people like Ruth Marcus really believe that they're pettiness could ever make humanity bigger?

I'll take my grandma's and my family's humanity, anyday, over the self-righteous bullshit of people like Ruth Marcus...I'll take their racism and their homophobia and their humble efforts to take responsibility and learn about people around them any day over the self-righteous bullshit that parades as morality these days...

And if moralists and absolutists don't like that...they can fuck off...

Apparently, if Cynthia McKinney and Joe Lieberman are any evidence, they also lose elections, these days...not something I'm crying over...

I like both Cynthia and Joe...but I don't like either of their self-righteousness, which is largely what got both of them in trouble, I think...

What American politics needs more of, these days, is the humble non-partisan leadership of people like Kathleen Sebelius, Democratic Governor of Kansas, and Bill Graves, Republican immediately-former-Governor of Kansas, who reflect everything that's right in my little state of Kansas...humble leadership dedicated more to service than to listening to yourself speak, which was the obsession of both Cynthia McKinney and Joe Lieberman...

And definitely more of the politics and wisdom from our neighbor from Hannibal, Missouri...Mark Twain...

How ironic that so many people were so offended by Mel Gibson's self-righteous, sectarian Catholicism only to kick him in the gut when he shows the least bit of humanity, even when it's not so pretty...

How in the fuck could anyone look at that bullshit and call it morality, I will never know...

All I know is that if that is what morality is, I want nothing to do with it...

Luckily, it is only a very shiny counterfeit...

To think otherwise demeans morality...

Because there is no way in hell that the moralism of Ruth Marcus and anyone like her is leading us to higher ground...

That kind of higher ground only comes with forgiveness...which, when we're not bullshitting ourselves, is the essence of morality...if we could ever get over ourselves, that is...

If morality were what Ruth Marcus and Joe Lieberman and Bill Bennett and a whole host of others portend it to be, it wouldn't be worth a bucket of spit...or, at least, a bucket of spit is the most that I would give for it...

Luckily, a more sincere morality is committed to loving people for their humanity, not kicking them in the guts when they demonstrate some of its less attractive side...

If humanity was always on the up and up, we wouldn't need to dig deeper...our superficial commitment to morality would be just fine...but morality isn't about looking good for the pews...its about doing the right thing, even when its difficult...and forgiveness is not only the heart of everything right in the world...it is only necessary in a world full of sinners aspiring to be better...and if anyone sells you any other snake oil, make sure to keep your receipt...

And if moralists want to control that question by kicking the shit out of those of us who take a more humble tack to moral questions, then so be it...they can have control...I just don't want anything to do with it or them, in that case...

But real morality isn't about control...it's about love and decency and kindness and loyalty and respecting people, even when you disagree with their words or their actions...

And the kind of morality and absolutism that has asserted itself around control and power has been the bane of human existence since the dawn of humanity...Naziism, Communism, theocracy, Fascism, marxism and socialism, liberal and conservative self-righteousness and power-hunger...

It is this obsession with power that has fucked up humanity for so long...

And yet someone has got to exercise authority responsibly...

I just never tire of my revulsion against the kind of bullshit belief that any one idea or person or group or ideology somehow has all the right answers or is somehow better than everyone else...

Genuine morality isn't about being better than everyone else...genuine morality wants everyone to be able to live in its glow...

Jesus wasn't a great man because he hated fags, as Reverend Phelps reassures us...nor because he kicked the money-changers out of the temple...

Jesus was a great man because he was the guy who stood up for the prostitute when she was about to be stoned...

If Jesus' primary legacy would have been kicking the money-changers out of the temple, I wouldn't have been very impressed...

But saving the prostitute takes some courage...

And that's the guy I admire...

And his example was to stand up for people like Mel Gibson when the whole world seems to want to kick him in the stomach and say, "Enough"...

And I'm goddamned proud of that Jesus...I couldn't give two shits if moralists like that or not, to be frank...

Because if the contrary were true...morality would be such a petty, small-minded thing that it wouldn't really be worth much any more...

World's gone crazy, lately, thinking that we can somehow improve the world by polarizing it and trying to prove who is better and who is just unredeemable...

There's nothing righteous about picking on people when they're down or polarizing the world to cleanse it...that's not morality...it's self-righteousness...

And self-righteousness is a poor substitute for a more genuine, humble morality...

So much so that I'm surprised that so many people can go so long bullshitting themselves, otherwise...

All I know is that, in a hundred years, I'd rather hang with Mel Gibson and even listen to his bullshit homophobia and anti-semitism and Catholic sectarianism than I listen to someone go on and on about how they still gotta get Mel Gibson...

Because the latter is not any decent impulse...it's just hate and snottiness and vindictiveness parading as something more noble than they actually are...

And surely humanity has got to be better than that...

Love,
Ben