Woty Freeman

Sunday, November 7, 2004

I voted for Bush because I think we're facing a moral crisis in America. Bush is a leader who can improve things, and Kerry is a man who would certainly have made things worse. Bush makes his positions and his reasoning known, and expects them to be debated in the political system. Kerry tries hard not to have any positions which he can be called to account for.

I disagree with Bush about gay marriage, stem cell research, and abortion, but I admire his unwavering moral seriousness and commitment to creating morally and politically legitimate policies. He is a politician I can disagree with respectfully, and I believe that in the long run good debate will happen and the political system will make the right policies.

Kerry seems to see Bush's moral seriousness as nothing more than a desire to impose Christianity on all Americans. I do not want a man who is unable to appreciate this excellent quality Bush has representing me, even and perhaps especially on issues upon which we agree. I want a politician who argues that the positions I favor are morally correct, not a politician who argues that morality is irrelevant to political issues.

This difference between Kerry and Bush would be important enough in a time of peace, and it is even more important now. We're facing an incredibly brutal enemy which cannot be fought in the old ways. We need new policies which reflect the reality of the situation, and only a morally serious President can lead us into them. Bush understands what's at stake, and he knows that we must both kill terrorists and address the root causes of terrorism. Kerry does not have the tools needed to do either.

Posted by Woty @ 09:41 PM EST [Link]

Monday, October 18, 2004

Math teachers tend to assign large sets of very similar problems as homework. The usual explanation for this is that students need lots of practice and repetition in order to learn math successfully. This explanation does not actually make sense, because induction does not exist. Students do not learn things by repeating an experience until they draw the appropriate conclusion from it.

The reason repetitive math assignments are useful is because math is nuanced, and diverse experience helps one to gain a broad understanding. The problems are slightly different from each other, and the value lies in working out how to solve slightly different problems. The assignment reveals nuances that a student is unaware of, and allows him or her to come to understand them.

Little, if anything, is gained from solving problems when the method of finding the solution is completely obvious to the student. If a student understands the principle behind a problem set, it's likely that many of its problems will be essentially educational useless to that student. Teachers are right to assign large problem sets not because it is necessary to do large numbers of problems, but because a teacher is better placed to assign a large problem set that is likely to contain some useful problems and some useless problems than to create an appropriate problem set for each student.

However, students are well placed to figure out which portions of an assignment are applicable to their educational needs. They can figure out which questions are obvious and which are challenging, and work only the educationally useful problems. Students should be allowed and encouraged to do this, and helped to develop the skills they need to do this well. For this reason, requiring students to complete all homework assignments in order to pass math classes is not only unnecessary, it is actually counter-productive.

Posted by Woty @ 01:09 AM EST [Link]

Saturday, July 10, 2004

John Kerry's campaign site discusses national security priorities:

John Kerry believes that HIV/AIDS is the great public health and humanitarian crisis of our times – and a fundamental security issue. He believes that fighting AIDS – and tuberculosis (TB) and malaria, the other two most deadly global infectious diseases – must be at the forefront of America’s foreign policy and national security agendas

Like corrupt government structures, the prevenlance of AIDS and other serious diseases in undeveloped cultures makes it far harder for those cultures to find their way out of their messes. These diseases may make it more difficult for those cultures to take seriously the notion that their problems are internally solveable and thus make them more inclined to instead blame their problems on us and attempt to destroy us. In this sense, one might argue that AIDS and other serious diseases present a serious security problem

But to argue that eradicating the diseases ought to be at the forefront of our national security agenda and foriegn policy is to put the cart before the horse. The threat to our national security comes from the moral problems of other cultures, not their physical problems. It is essential to the security of moral civilization that we cause these cultures get out of their moral insolvencey. Although this necessarily involves help with certain phyiscal problems (for instance, we must help Iraq with security and infatructure), this is a means to fixing the moral problems and not a primary security aim in itself. A man who can see only the phyiscal problems and none of the moral problems cannot fight this war and is not fit to be President.

Posted by Woty @ 06:33 PM EST [Link]

Saturday, December 20, 2003

For at least the past decade, Israeli diplomatic strategy has assumed that there is a set of concessions that, if made, could cause the Palestinians to stop trying to destroy the Jewish state. The extreme left values the attempt to make such a set of concessions above security; the extreme right values refraining from concessions above security.

Ariel Sharon is not an adherent of either approach. He cares about the security of Israel, and about justice. He is shifting policy away from trying to appease the Palestinians, but at the same time he is willing to do things that are unfavorable to the Israelis. He is threatening to unilaterally annex significant parts of the West Bank, and also to complete the wall, unless the Palestinians end the violence and start negotiating in good faith.

Sharon is telling the Palestianins that there is a place for them among the civilized nations if they want it, and that he's willing to help them become civilized and modern. He's willing to ease restrictions and dismantle settlements in order to make it more possible for them to make the choice to be civilized. But he is not willing to pretend that they are civilized when they are not, and he is not willing to participate in sham negotiations in an attempt to tempt them into reasonableness.

Sharon would prefer a negotiated solution, but he is not going to wait for Palestinian consent before he defends Israel. If genuine peaceful intent is not forthcoming from the Palestinians, he will act without it, and the Palestinians will get less than they would have otherwise. This policy might act as an effective threat and get the Palestinians to cooperate. That would be ideal. But if it does not, it will at least make the defense of Israel easier and encourage the Americans to take the correct side more consistently.

This strategy is only workable if the American president understands the basic morality of Israel's position. We have never had such a president before; that we have one now is an important moral developement which Sharon is handling brilliantly.

Posted by Woty @ 03:55 AM EST [Link]

Friday, December 12, 2003

The following is a list of questions that seem to me to be dishonorable to treat as open:

* Was the holocaust a reasonable reaction to Jewish presence in Germany?

* Is the intifada a reasonable reaction to the existence of Israel/Jewish
presence in the Middle East?

* Were the attacks on 9/11 carried out directly or indirectly by the
American and/or Israeli governments?

* Does the American government go to war primarily in order to steal oil
and/or increase its oppressive power?

* Does the external threat to the security of the United States exist only
in the imagination of Bush (or the right wing, or the corporations, or the
deluded masses, or similar)?

* Is it incorrect, unsophisticated, simplistic, or otherwise wrong to call
the attacks of 9/11 evil?

Posted by Woty @ 06:05 AM EST [Link]

Thursday, September 11, 2003

When something happens, we try to explain it. In particular, when there is a crisis, especially an attack of some sort, the papers always soon show a picture of people crying with the headline "Why?". One way we refer to the most awful events is by saying that we do not understand it. For example, "this is beyond comprehension" or "this is unfathomable horror". But most people don't really mean that. Most people think that events are explicable, and that it is important to find the explanation in order to know what to make of events, and in order to know how to act. "Why?" is an utterly seriously question.

Because we ask that question, and because we are utterly serious about finding an answer, today we are better off than we were two years ago. We know what happened, and why. It's now a comprehensible horror rather than an incomprehensible one. Also, the threat no longer seems infinite. There are things being done, and they are working. The world is getting better, and we have not had another large attack.

If we had not been seeking an explanation, we would have no useful knowledge about who did it and what they were trying to accomplish. Without such knowledge, we would not be able to craft any reasonable attempts to eliminate the threat. We would not be able to predict what our enemies might do, because we would be making estimates based on what we'd do in a similar situation. That would not supply accurate information about the intentions of an enemy with radically different aims than we would have. We would not be able to fight effectively, because we would not understand. But because we ask why, and because our "Why?" is serious, we can understand and we can achieve our aims.

Posted by Woty @ 01:48 PM EST [Link]

Friday, September 5, 2003

An argument I've heard in favor of Campaign Finance Reform goes something like this:

You can't give money to a judge. You can't give money to a cop. So why should you be able to give money to a politician?

Their implied answer is that you shouldn't. They think it ought to be against the law to give private money to political candidate's election funds and that campaigns ought to be financed with public money instead.

But there is a better answer to this question. Judges and cops work for the state ďż˝ they're not supposed to be partisan and they're not supposed to have their own agenda. They are supposed to impartially enforce the law. On the other hand, politicians are supposed to be partisan and follow their own agendas. They are supposed to have positions and values that get them elected, and they aren't supposed to stay in office unless they have a mandate from the people to enact their agenda. They are not the employees of the state; or even of the people as a whole. They work for the people who elect them and provide their mandate. This makes them fundamentally different from judges.

Posted by Woty @ 06:40 PM EST [Link]