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I'm a conservative. But sometimes wonder if I could describe myself as a member of the political left.

After all, I am animated by the same moral instinct that leftists endlessly and loudly profess: the belief that a society's moral worth is measured by how it treats its weakest, neediest, and most marginalized members. Like them, I am outraged by all the ways in which our society screws over the little guy. These convictions are born of my Christian faith and are anchored deep in my mind and heart.

But it's those same moral convictions that too often make me angry at the political left as it currently exists in the West, and make it impossible for me to call myself a leftist. Perhaps nothing exemplifies this better than the debate around the confirmation of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her stance on school choice.

School choice is not a fantasy of right-wing ideologues. For parents of means, it is a reality. They are able to either pay for private schools or move to districts with high-quality public schools. What school choice advocates like DeVos want is simply for poor children to have the same opportunities afforded to those parents who are better off. Opportunities that, by the way, many liberal parents happily exercise for themselves.

What's so wrong with the public school system as it is? Well, a lot.

Large, centralized, bureaucratic, top-down systems are impervious to change, innovation, institutional learning, and adaptability. They are particularly disadvantaged when it comes to being responsive to the needs of those they are supposed to serve as opposed to those of the insiders who man them. A public school classroom is not some platonic ideal of learning. It was born out of a very specific time and place, the late 19th century, when the elite ideal was the industrial assembly line. The way schools are designed today is based on these old ideas, which are rooted in shoddy philosophy and pseudo-science that has long been outdated.

Consider this: If a 19th century school teacher walked into a contemporary classroom, she would feel right at home, and could start teaching with minimal adaptation. Meanwhile, if a 19th century surgeon walked into a contemporary operating room, he would be utterly out of place, and if he wanted to perform a surgery, he would have to go through years of unlearning and relearning. This simple analogy should have us running around with our hair on fire every single day from sunrise to sundown in a state of collective fury.

Why haven't schools changed? In so many spheres of human endeavor medicine, business, the military, and academia new scientific discoveries, new organizational paradigms, and technological change have brought evolution and transformation. Innovation and efficiency comes about through a complicated trial-and-error process, one which is most effective the more decentralized it is, exactly the kind of process that large, top-down, centralized, bureaucratic organizations are most impervious to.

This issue is personal for me. As I was growing up, my family had economic ups and downs, and I experienced the worst as well as the best of what the school system in an advanced First World country had to offer. I had an unconventional learning style, which meant I did not do well in traditional public schools, and it was only because my parents eventually had enough money to put me in private schools that I eventually made something of myself academically. There is no doubt in my mind that if I had I not been afforded these opportunities, I would have become a teenage dropout.

I have personally witnessed the destruction that a top-down, one-size-fits-all, bureaucratic system can wreak on the lives of children who have the gall to be a square peg in a round hole, or have underprivileged parents, or both. There are so many kids with tremendous gifts whose lives will never reach their full potential because the public school system lets them down.

I broke out, and did well for myself. Now my own daughter goes to an alternative private school where she thrives to an astonishing degree, even as public school parents around me are in various states of dismay and panic. Every time I drop my daughter off or pick her up from school or go to a PTA meeting, I utter a silent prayer of thanks for this incredible luck and joy, right before my heart breaks at the thought of the parents who do not have the same privilege.

And then, if I'm in a sour mood, my thoughts go to the progressives who would sanctimoniously explain that, because I am a conservative, and I support school choice, I am somehow an advocate for cruelty or disregard for the poor. But it is they who are the members and agents of a political coalition whose goal is the sustainment of a system that actively destroys underprivileged children's lives.

Maybe you disagree, and that's fine. But for all that is beautiful, spare me your sanctimony. My cause is holy, and yours stinks to high heaven.

View post:
Liberals are wrong to gang up on Betsy DeVos - The Week Magazine

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'Disgrace to the Black Race': Sen. Tim Scott Illustrates How Liberals Show Tolerance - CNSNews.com

The Democratic Party has gone off the rails. We are now seeing serious (apparently) contemplation of a military coup as the solution to the Donald Trump crisis. And it isnt just comedians either, although liberals seem to get their news largely from comedians these days. The liberal Foreign Policy features an essay by Georgetown law professor and former senior advisor at the U.S. State Department Rosa Brooks, on how to get rid of President Trump before 2020. Because a four-year term is too long to wait.

I think Foreign Policy pretends to be a serious publication; it currently features a special offer subscription rate billed as a response to the war on truth. But Ms. Brookss essay isnt serious, it is just another howl of anguish from the Left.

How, exactly, are liberals going to get rid of our president without waiting until the next election? To her credit, Brooks doesnt advocate assassination. She notes the possibility of impeachment, but admits that cant happen until the Democrats take over Congress, no sooner than 2018. Thats too late! Plan B is the 25th Amendment, which, among other things, provides for a transition in power if the president should become disabled:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Brooks hypothesizes that Mike Pence and a majority of President Trumps cabinet might certify that Trump is disabledby reason of insanity, apparentlyand install Pence as Acting President. I guess it truly is morning in America, if liberals are fantasizing about having Mike Pence as president.

This brings us to the ultimate solution: a military coup!

The fourth possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders. *** The prospect of American military leaders responding to a presidential order with open defiance is frightening but so, too, is the prospect of military obedience to an insane order. After all, military officers swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, not the president. For the first time in my life, I can imagine plausible scenarios in which senior military officials might simply tell the president: No, sir. Were not doing that, to thunderous applause from the New York Times editorial board.

Several things are funny about this. To name just a few: 1) If military leaders had any desire to mount a coup against a president, it would have been Barack Obama, not Donald Trump. 2) Liberals who yearn for generals to seize power with guns say they are the ones who are against fascism. 3) The idea that applause from the New York Times editorial board is somehow a relevant factor in a world where the Army is staging a coup is a wonderful illustration of the American Lefts distance from reality.

It is easy to laugh at the current hysteria in the Democratic Party, and, perhaps, it is a moral duty to do so. But we are learning something very ugly about liberals. All that talk about democracy? Forget it. Their interest is in power, period. I seriously think they would throw us conservatives in jail if they had the opportunity. The Democratic Party, as currently constituted, must never achieve power again.

Via Donald Sensing.

More here:
I'm So Old, I Remember When Liberals Opposed Military Coups - Power Line (blog)

Tom Krattenmaker Published 3:16 a.m. ET Feb. 9, 2017 | Updated 2 hours ago

Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl on Feb. 5, 2017(Photo: Bob Donnan, USA TODAY Sports)

And a sequin-bedecked pop star will show them the way.

Not exactly holy writ. Yet in addition to a wildly entertaining performance at the Super Bowl, Lady Gaga has handed progressives the unifying principle theyve struggled to identify and articulate. As Gaga demonstrated in her uniquely fabulous way, its time for progressives to reclaim patriotism.

Speculation was rampant that Gaga might use her halftime spotlight to make a pointed political statement la Meryl Streep at the Golden Globes. What a surprise and head-scratcher, initially to find her starting the show with God Bless America.

Liberals would have rolled their eyes out of their sockets had it been a country star singing it. But Gaga being Gaga, they probably trusted she was up to something. When she segued into This Land is Your Landand then her catchy hits, including the anthem of acceptance Born This Way,it was obvious what she was doing: connecting progressives zeal for inclusion to the nations founding ideals.

Its a line that hasbeen begging to be drawn for some time now, and an appeal to patriotism that hasalso been there for the taking. If accepted, Gagas gift can solidify resistance to the Trump administration and help shape a positive progressive identity for the long term ahead.

For me, the need for a progressive rallying cry and unifying message was never more apparent than during a recent edition of MSNBCs Hardball.Host Chris Matthews was interviewing a woman who helped organize the massive womens march that took place the day after the inauguration. Matthews ticked off some of the marchers issues reproductive rights, black lives, opposition to military aggression and asked Janaye Ingram what unites them and the people behind them.

You saw people of all different stripes, 5 million people globally, who came together on January 21st,marching for a variety of issues, Ingram responded. "And yes, they're interconnected. Why? Because we as women, we are inherently intersectional. We are born intersectional. We're not single-issue people."

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Important concepts, but not whats needed to bring people to their feet. Much more could have been said. Like:

"We are unitedby our caring for the dignity and fair treatment of people regardless of their sex, origins, or whatever else might mark them as 'different.' "And, "We are united by our belief in the American ideal, by the story of a nation founded on the noble principle that all people are created equal and deserving of equal respect."

Its my observation that progressives have ceded patriotism to conservatives, much like the word moral, because conservative use and misuse of these concepts have made them radioactive to progressive sensibilities. Thats a shame, and a lost opportunity to win over wider swaths of the public. Although the m-word is seldom uttered, progressive values are shot through with moral commitments. And they are deeply resonant with important aspects of what it means to be an American.

Take gay rights. Progressives rally to this cause not because of a lack of morals, but because of the deep moral conviction that its wrong to mistreat people on the basis of sexual orientation. Analogous moral commitments undergird support for the rights of women, racial minoritiesand followers of non-majority religions.

At the several rallies Ive attended recently, Ive been struck by the number of non-Latino and non-Muslim people standing with those most directly under the gun of the new administration. Ive been impressed, too, by the explicit appeals to what our country is about to patriotism captured by the frequent assertion that the dark vision of Trump and adviser Steven Bannon is not the America I know.

The America we know and the American values we advanceare the invisible glue that bind the disparate parts of the progressive movement. This is the progressive patriotism waiting for us to name, and claim.

POLICING THE USA:Alook atrace, justice, media

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As is the case with any movement, the progressive cause needs to be known for more than what its against. Resisting Trump is plenty for now, but the post-Trump day will come soon, we hope when the movement will need to articulate a positive vision and identity. What, in the long run, will progressives be known for, and what will attract more people to the cause?

Shutting down campus talks by people such as Breitbart'sMilo Yiannopoulos? Better to let him speak and disgrace himself, I say. Violence in the streets and punches in the face for hateful provocateurs such asRichard Spencer? Better to go high road, which means fierce commitment but peaceful tactics and a benevolent spirit. This is not only right but also tactically smart. Nothing would delight the president more than a pretext for a clampdown on dissent, with a level of violence infinitely more potent than anything that black bloc protesters can muster.

Progressives,its OK to wave the flag. It belongs to us as much as the conservatives who have made it their brand. Well know it means something quite different, and more valid, at a pro-immigrants march than it means as a stage prop behind Trumps podium.

A member of USA TODAYs Board of Contributors, Tom Krattenmaker is a writer specializing in religion in public life and communications director atYale Divinity School. His new book is titledConfessions of a Secular Jesus Follower.

You can readdiverse opinions from ourBoard of Contributorsand other writers ontheOpinion front page,on Twitter@USATOpinionand in our dailyOpinion newsletter.To submit a letter, comment or column, check oursubmission guidelines.

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Liberals should learn from Lady Gaga: Tom Krattenmaker - USA TODAY

At the election, Malcolm Turnbull resisted running a tough negative campaign focusing on Bill Shorten.

Remember that large sinkhole that appeared this week in Point Piper, the suburb of Malcolm Turnbulls harbourside mansion?

The gaping ground presented particular difficulties for local authorities. Contractors and investigators arrived, but it couldnt be quickly filled in because the cause remained unclear. So as an interim measure it was lined with black plastic.

The hole became an obvious metaphor for Turnbulls situation. The year has started with the government staring at an abyss, far from sure it can avoid being swallowed into it. In this first parliamentary week, some plastic has been rolled out but permanent repair looms as a complex task.

Coalition MPs left Canberra after riding a roller coaster of political emotions.

On Tuesday senator Cory Bernardi had depressed and angered colleagues by walking away from the Liberals to form his own conservative party. But a day later the troops spirits soared at the spectacle of mongrel Malcolm savaging Bill Shorten as a hypocrite, a parasite, and a social-climbing sycophant, with knees under billionaires tables, sipping Cristal.

(This has been dubbed by Labor as the know-your-place speech. Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen apparently doesnt have to be told his place he had to ask Tanya Plibersek what Cristal was.)

Its amazing how 10 minutes can change the whole morale of the team, said one Liberal MP, although there are varying opinions on how it will go down among ordinary voters, who mostly hate the gutter wrestling of politics. Another Liberal member said Turnbull had needed to fire up the base.

By weeks end, partly because of their better mood, even the Bernardi defection had come to seem less significant than it had initially appeared to many Liberals.

On Thursday Turnbull returned to his personal attack on Shorten, this time outside the House. He wants to play the politics of envy but yet hes been a sycophant to the billionaires of Melbourne for years and years, he told reporters.

He went on: Politics is about many issues. It is about policies, it is about character, it is about strength of character.

And to pre-empt the obvious question of his own dealings with billionaires: I back myself. I am my own man. I cant be bought by anyone. I dont suck up to billionaires. I look them in the eye and when I need to I take them on.

Years ago the character of then Labor leader Mark Latham came under intense scrutiny, to his disadvantage. To have ones character blackened can be lethal for a leader.

The government has prodded and probed around character in relation to Shorten but so far without much damage to him.

It thought its big chance was when he was appearing before the trade union royal commission. There were issues about deals done by his Australian Workers Union, and his long-term non-disclosure of a big donation when he was running for parliament. But little stuck politically.

At the election, Turnbull resisted running a tough negative campaign focusing on Shorten. When the result was so close, he came under fire from some Liberals for failing to do so. They were unconvinced by the argument that the research had shown people wanted positives. Perhaps it was an opportunity permanently missed.

That Shorten has had an element of teflon about him is deeply frustrating to the government.

Shorten himself is said to have been taken aback and somewhat rattled by the ferocity of Turnbulls Wednesday attack. He knows as well as anyone that he has critics within Labor who would privately agree with more than a little of the Prime Ministers critique, and that Anthony Albanese remains an ambitious alternative if things were to go bad for him.

The leadership of neither Turnbull nor Shorten is currently under threat, but given recent history each has a keen eye to his own back.

One major difference in their respective situations is that Shortens internal critics are publicly silent, while Turnbulls enemies, most notably Tony Abbott, are out in the media all the time.

Labor is not having public arguments among its own about policy. Turnbull is challenged on a regular basis, just a few days ago by reported pressure from moderates over same-sex marriage. With a one-seat majority, hes periodically subjected to threats from the Nationals George Christensen, who this week tweeted he would support Bob Katters bill for a commission of inquiry into banks.

And now in the media there is speculation about his leadership, though the form guides just underline the inadequacies of the alternatives.

Apart from denigrating his opponent, Turnbull this week was trying to deal with his sinkhole by projecting two messages: that the government understands and wants to help with the cost-of-living pressures faced by families, and that it has heard and taken on board the publics disgust about politicians having their noses in the taxpayer trough. But neither message can cut through effectively with the constant distractions and noise.

Legislation was brought forward to reform child care, to the benefit of lower and middle income families. And Turnbull and ministers continued to strongly push energy security, again highlighted by the latest blackout in South Australia.

But the political pluses of the child care changes compete with the political negatives of savings being extracted from family tax benefits; anyway, Turnbull chose to drown out the child care policy with his blast at Shorten. The energy message suffers from the Coalitons lack of a clear, comprehensive and convincing policy of its own.

The government is again tackling politicians entitlements which Turnbull wants to call work expenses - but the problem is that a cynical public is likely to just go Oh yeah? The political damage from revelations of abuse is always greater than the credit received for any remedial action.

When Liberal MPs come down from the high of watching their leaders roasting of Shorten, they will be back to looking at the polls, and whether they show any sign of improving. This week Newspoll had the Coalition trailing Labor 46-54%; in Essential it was 47-53%. Turnbull made bad polling numbers central in spearing Abbott. Now they are becoming a weapon against him.

Excerpt from:
Grattan on Friday: Liberals get high on bubbles and billionaires - The Conversation AU