According to reports in the IBJ and elsewhere, the trial pitting IBM against the State of the Indiana is winding down. At issue are cross-claims about the reasons for and propriety of the termination of IBM’s contract to provide welfare intake services.
According to the IBJ, IBM’s lawyer argued that the real reason for the termination was state budgetary woes. The State’s lawyers defended the termination by complaining that “IBM was more concerned about profit than getting assistance to needy people.”
And the sun rises in the east….
Those of us who study outsourcing have repeatedly made the point that–while contracting can be a useful tool in many circumstances–it is not appropriate in areas where government is providing essential services to vulnerable populations. Despite lots of irresponsible rhetoric to the contrary, government is not a business. It’s purposes and aims are different. Private, for-profit organizations have a duty to shareholders; government agencies have obligations to citizens.
Evidently, this essential distinction escaped the notice of the Daniels Administration, which is now shocked–shocked to discover that a business would prioritize the pursuit of profit.
In other breaking news, it appears that rain is wet.
The United States is rooted in the Enlightenment–an era that gave us empiricism and the scientific method. Our approach to government was forged by philosophers who extolled reason and evidence. We have always looked up to scientists, and scientists–who are best able to pursue their ideas in an open culture–have historically flocked to our shores.
“Yankee ingenuity” produced a constant flow of important inventions. Fulton gave us the steamboat; Samuel Morse the telegraph, Eli Whitney the cotton gin. Thomas Edison was credited with more than 1000 inventions. The Wright brothers gave us the airplane. The list goes on and on.
Americans were first to set foot on the moon.
Technology–from the telegraph to the IPhone, from the automobile to your television set– builds upon basic scientific principles. The inventions and advances we take for granted would not have been possible had the country remained rooted in the superstition that characterized pre-Enlightenment Europe. Just as the early colonists rejected the proposition that monarchs were divinely ordained, they were open to the example of men like Benjamin Franklin who engaged in empirical experimentation and scientific investigation.
Okay, I hear you saying. Well and good. What has prompted this particular rant?
I just read a recent survey of the American attitudes and beliefs. It found that 39% of us believe in evolution.
At a time when we are spending billions of dollars on medical and biological research–all of which is based upon evolution–only 39% of Americans accept a settled scientific theory. Indeed, if political rhetoric is any indication, very few Americans even understand the difference between scientific theory–an explanatory framework constructed after painstaking empirical testing–and a wild-ass guess, which is the conversational use of the term.
Thirty-nine percent of Americans are scientifically literate–or at least scientifically literate enough to understand and accept the operation and importance of evolution.
There are many indicators of a nation in decline. The Creation Museum–where Adam and Eve saddle up their dinosaurs to romp through a world created in its current form less than 10,000 years ago–may be the most significant such indicator.
A friend sent me a copy of this year’s American Family Action Pac political questionnaire. Rather than characterize it, I decided to let it speak for itself. (The odd numbering and format are original.)
Indiana Family Action PAC 2012 Questionnaire for State Candidates
Please circle the response that most accurately reflects your position on the following issues.
1. Education – Protect and expand parental choice options provided in current law to allow all parents
the opportunity to receive a voucher to send their children to any public, private, religious or home
school of their choice. SF F U O SO
Education – Allow parents dedicated to their children’s education to home-school their children
without imposing additional state regulations, other than that which is already required in state law. SF F U O SO
3. Education – Redefine “bullying” so that students who express opposition to the public promotion of
homosexuality in public schools will be guilty of “bullying” if they offend students who have taken
on a homosexual identity. SF F U O SO
4.Academic Liberty – The teaching of evolution is currently an educational requirement for teachers in
Indiana public schools. Protect Indiana teachers within state law so that they can also discuss the
problems and weaknesses of evolutionary theory. SF F U O SO
5.Business – Some Indiana cities have increased regulations on businesses by adding “sexual orientation” and
“gender identity” to the list of protected classes that get special rights. State law does not require businesses
to treat these groups as protected classes. Require all levels of government to recognize the list
of specially protected classes within state law in order to give businesses uniform regulations. SF F U O SO
6. Faith – Jesus Christ is my personal Lord and Savior. I believe the God of the Bible is sovereign
over all of life, including public policy, and I will use biblical principles to guide how I vote. Y N
7. Homosexual agenda – Change state discrimination law to protect an employee’s sexual
preferences in the same way that race, religion, age, gender and ancestry are protected. SF F U O SO
8. Marriage – Increase the time a married couple with minor children must wait for a divorce
(current law is 60 days) in order to give them a longer opportunity to work toward reconciliation. SF F U O SO
9. Marriage – Amend the Indiana Constitution as follows: “Only a marriage between one (1) man
and one (1) woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Indiana. A legal status identical or
substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shallnot be valid or recognized.”SF F U O SO
10. Abortion – Prohibit abortion by law except when the life of the mother is in danger. SF F U O SO
11. Abortion – As the medical abortion field explodes (abortion pills like RU486), make Indiana law apply
the same standards for dispensing abortion pills as it does for surgical abortions (i.e., define it in the law,
require licensing and regulatory standards, require key health and safety standards, and require
informed consent/patient information standards). . SF F U O SO
12. Taxes – Increase state taxes in order to provide more services. SF F U O SO
13. Taxes – Discontinue all direct and indirect state support of the Kinsey Institute
(controversial “sex research” organization in Bloomington, IN) SF F U O SO
14. Gambling – Prohibit Casinos in Indiana. SF F U O SO
15. Sex industry – Require strip clubs to close at midnight and make them ineligible for
Liquor licenses. Require dancers to remain at least 6 feet away from customers at all times. SF F U O S
Anyone who “favors” numbers 5, 7 and 12 will clearly be opposed; the language of the others–especially #6–is simply jaw-dropping. These folks are the ones with an “agenda”– and it is anti-science, anti-gay, anti-sex and deeply, profoundly un-American.
When the American Family folks endorse someone, remember that these are the positions that candidate has promised to support.
As another friend put it–so many Christians, so few lions….
On my way to work this morning, WFYI informed me that today is the day Mark Massa will be sworn in as the newest Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court.
When Governor Daniels announced that he had chosen Massa, there was a good deal of criticism. Some observers expressed surprise that–once again–the Governor had ignored an opportunity to diversify the Court, that–once again–he had declined to appoint an eminently qualified woman. Adding insult to injury, Daniels claimed that his choice was based upon the candidates’ relative qualifications for the job, a manifestly bogus excuse.
I was not surprised by the choice, which I’d predicted well before the commission charged with winnowing the field even sent three names to the Governor. Nor do I believe it had any more to do with sexism than it did with merit.
This is Indiana–the crony state.
There’s a pretty robust academic literature dealing with political culture. Some states (Massachusetts, say) have a liberal culture that promotes public service; others (Arizona, Texas) take a considerably more conservative, parochial approach to the role of government. When I was researching state differences in political culture for a book on the Faith-Based Initiative, I asked George Geib–past Dean of History at Butler University and a long-time Indianapolis Republican operative–how he would describe Indiana’s political approach. His answer was that the framework within which we conduct our affairs is quid pro quo.
Look around at the so-called “privatization” initiatives. Lucrative deals for parking and welfare intake have gone to well-connected ACS. The developer of the parking garage being built in Broad Ripple used to work for the Ballard Administration. A PR firm that gets city business just “happens” to employ Ballard’s son. These are just a few examples that come readily to mind; there are literally hundreds of others.
This isn’t new in Indiana, and it isn’t the exclusive provenance of Republicans. Both parties have practiced politics as spoils system, both have favored their cronies with appointments and contracts.
The problem women have in a crony system is that we are late to the party, and less likely to play the game–less likely to be one of the favored cronies. Nothing against our gender–if we were playing by the good old boys’ rules, we’d probably be equally likely to be rewarded with the plum jobs and/or contracts.
Mark Massa was counsel to the Governor; by all accounts, the two are friends. And in a state where doing business with your friends is the way business is done, his appointment was a foregone conclusion.
I haven’t posted about the Trayvon Martin tragedy because, really, what could I say that hasn’t already been said?
In my opinion, whatever happened between George Zimmerman and Trayvon immediately before Zimmerman shot him–whether there was an altercation or not– is legally and morally irrelevant to the question of guilt; when Zimmerman intentionally ignored the police dispatcher’s order not to follow Martin, he became responsible for what happened next.
As evidence has emerged, the one thing that seems indisputable is that George Zimmerman is a cowboy–one of those all-too-common sheriff/policeman wannabes with short fuses and delusions of righteousness. It is the role of public safety and public policy to reign in such people–indeed, protecting citizens from those who would harm them is the most basic function of government.
The passage of “Stand Your Ground” laws has enabled, rather than impeded, the cowboys. In 2010, a survey by the Tampa Bay Times found that Florida’s rates of “justifiable homicide” had tripled since the law’s passage. Kendall Coffee, former U.S. Attorney for Southern Florida, has condemned the law as “a license to kill.”
“Stand Your Ground” laws are part and parcel of what seems to be an effort to recreate the “justice system” of the wild West–at the same time we are choking off resources for law enforcement, we’re passing laws that protect vigilantes.
