Monday, September 27, 2010

The Problem of Education

The best teachers have always been those who are the most knowledgeable about the subjects they teach -- and especially the few who discover what they teach, and not the countless many in education schools learning to pretend to know what they are talking about.

That is the problem of mass specialized education -- in which the educators know about education, but have nothing really to teach -- and the kids realize that, and recognize that it is just learning for learning's sake, become disinterested, disruptive, rebel, and drop out.

The same is true of every compartmentalized profession -- and particularly true of the mass broadcast professions such as journalism, public relations, and mass marketing -- whether for a product or for political ideologies.

That's what happens when a trade association begins to think that the reason for being, is to promote their own self-interest instead of the greater good -- and cannot distinguish that difference. That's the tremendous and fatal problem of unionizing the public service workers.

And so every discussion of public education now, is how can they get more money for the teachers and education administrators -- and never, what do the students want to learn, and how can they best do it?

Monday, September 06, 2010

The "Envy" of the Public Union Workers

The "envy" that is so troubling for work and fairness in America today, is not "of" the unions, but" by" the unions, to create resentment and their overwhelming sense of entitlement that they do not deserve -- and to justify their trade monopolies.

When total compensation is studied, the median for union (government) workers is twice that of the median for all other workers -- and the latter median should be the basis upon which the fair compensation of the former should be tied to -- which is the ability of the community to pay for their public sector (service) workers -- and not that government (union) workers are entitled to more because they "sacrificed" by taking less than the highest compensated members of society.

The fair comparison for union workers compensated for seniority, is the median for the entire population sample (community) -- and not the top 10% determined by merit, which the union workers delude themselves is their "comparable peers" -- who are there because of extraordinary merit and luck. But a society can afford to reward a very few in that manner -- because they are not everybody -- and that is a good basis for doing so, and NOT envy, resentment, delusion and entitlement.

Just because one has done the same job for 30 years, does not make them the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. There is something about genius and innovation that is more than just putting in one's time doing the same thing everyday for 30-50 years. And that is why society has to reward the innovators of the light bulb or computers more than just those who can use one equally.

And then, when the union (government) workers compare their compensations to private sector workers, they distort that comparison by ignoring substantial compensation like nontaxable health benefits, holidays and employer payments -- which the taxpayers (their employers) have to pay and so while already receiving twice the actual median, are resentful that they're not getting what their imagined peers in the top 10% are getting, even though most harder working people are usually getting less.

That is the issue as most people see it, and not that they are resentful or envious that they are not the ones in on their great deal of getting over everybody else because they stick together and can therefore force their communities because they are the only ones allowed to do so by laws passed by lawmakers they largely determine.

That's not fair.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Is One Wasting A Vote to Vote Republican in Hawaii?

Actually, when one votes for the lesser of two evils, one still gets evil -- and not good, so Hawaii voters should give up on the hopelessness that any of the Democrats are going to do any other but serve their own government worker self-interests (supporters) -- most dependably the teachers because they can indoctrinate generation after generation of "democratic" voters who would never even think of voting another way, which is characteristic of most authoritarian regimes dictated by cliques and conformity, even when it insists on calling itself the "correctness," that this editorial writer as well as all the political writers enforce "religiously" and dependably in the media of Hawaii. That's why you get ruinous government.

Of course they would wish the voters of Hawaii to believe that any vote other than for even a flawed "Democrat" is just throwing your vote away -- rather than probably the single greatest act of valor and independence they can exercise in their lives, and if enough people act with that mindfulness, they can change the course of their own history -- instead of the pervasive hopelessness and despair that they cannot do anything else but pay four times a much for everything.

That's why Saddam used to get 97% of the vote -- and why the Democrats of Hawaii actually sent their Aloha and admiration for his success in dominating his country, and were horrified when President Bush didn't recognize that legitimacy to crush the citizens of his own country even if he got all the votes and threatened to unleash his weapons of mass destruction -- which only the Republican president Bush dared to challenge.

People forget already that the world used to be terrorized and paralyzed by such threats that have now become mostly distant memories, but those things don't just happen because they weren't ever real. But people change that reality, even if the "Democratic" propagandists would like the record now to read that there never was that threat and fear that caused the world to vote unanimously to enforce the United Nations' resolutions.

And now they want you to believe there were no such fiascoes as the Boat, the Garbage, the Sewage, the Potholes, and more money for government workers to do less but designate themselves as the poor, underprivileged and truly deserving.

People need to start getting into the practice and habit of voting for change that can make a difference.