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President Obama Rejects Coddling College Students

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During a question and answer session on the topic of education, President Barack Obama made some comments regarding the growing level of political correctness on college campuses. More to the point, the President slammed the increasing extremeness of college students (i.e. students who throw temper tantrums when someone with whom they disagree is invited to speak on their campuses). A quick clip of the President’s comments may be found in the video below:

The President is dead-on accurate with these comments. Colleges should be places of robust discussions – not places where only one side of an argument is allowed to be presented for fear of hurting the feelings of college students. In fact, more than “both sides” of the story should be presented. As we all should understand, each issue has many different “sides” and as many of those sides as possible should be presented to help give college students better perspectives on which to make their own decisions.

The RNC Ends And The Real Campaign Begins

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Thursday night was the final night of the Republican National Convention and Senator John McCain gave his acceptance speech. While his speech was not as thrilling or electric as any of the other main players in this election, I thought he performed well. Senator Barack Obama’s speech was more emotional and Senator Joe Biden’s gave a great attack speech. Governor Sarah Palin gave a more exciting, electrifying, and attacking speech than McCain, but I think McCain telling the story of his Vietnam experience made his speech much more personal than the rest.

Still, his speech would rank fourth of the speeches listed above. But not a generic fourth, more like an Olympic fourth – you know, where everyone finishes the event within the same half-second.

Both the RNC and the DNC were good events. However, aside from the tradition of holding these events every four years, I think we’d all agree that there isn’t anything really “big” decided at Conventions any more. In fact, one of the biggest highlights of these events is that they signal the impending end of the Presidential campaigns!

America is tired from a far too long Presidential campaign. We had people putting themselves into the exploratory committee process as far as two years ago. Yuck! Whether we get McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden, I do not think we are getting the best that America has to offer. That said, let’s hope that we get the best this campaign has to offer and that this campaign is out of our heads soon!

Looking at Obama’s Acceptance Speech

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The New York Times online posted an article the other day wondering when Senator Barack Obama is going to clarify his message. If you listen to Obama’s messages and speeches, he tends to give a very rousing presentation using poetic, sometimes even pastoral, language. Yet, it is rare that he makes the connections that informed voters are looking to hear.

For example, in his acceptance speech last night, Obama said:

I’ll invest in early childhood education. I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I’ll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American – if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.

Sounds good to me. However, I wonder about a few things…

First, what does “invest” in early childhood education mean? Are you going to provide universal pre-K education? Can someone show me the statistics stating the overwhelming need for this service? I’m sure it will help many Americans, but can we see some demographic information?

Second, one does not recruit an army of teachers out of thin air. Further, if Obama has ever been to New Jersey, then he would know that the New Jersey Education Association union has a death grip on the education industry in our state. In other words, they’ll lovingly accept his offer of more support and higher wages, but the moment he talks about accountability they’ll throw him out and mount a massive campaign against him. It’s funny…New Jersey’s teachers WANT to be challenged and prove that they can succeed in educating ALL students, yet their union fights against accountability. Unreal.

Finally (and I know this better than anyone else), American makes no promise to its young people that if you serve your community, then you’ll be able to afford a college education. Sure, we make a promise about being educated if a person serves in the military, but we make no promise about an affordable educating if one serves their community. Imagine the massive government bureaucracy that would be needed to pay for a program like that…

The only other comment that I would make about Obama’s speech and the direction that his platform is headed in general is that services cost money. I’m completely behind Obama’s statement that federal taxes should be cut for 95% of Americans. That’s great if you ask me. However, many federal dollars which are collected through taxes are filtered back to states and large cities to pay for certain services. If there is less tax revenue at the federal level, then one of two things will happen. One, services will be reduced at the state and local levels because the funding will no longer be there. Two, taxes will be raised at the state or local levels to maintain services.

Personally, I think state and local taxes will go up if Obama’s plan goes through. And I think that’s the way to handle it because I’m a big believer in state’s rights in our federal system. Of course there is always the option of cutting services and programs that are a waste of money…or getting out of Iraq…so that the country’s expenses are reduced. But I haven’t heard a politician talk about ideas like that this election season!