If you support the use of waterboarding on enemy captives, you support the use of that torture on any future American captives.

Waterboarding is torture. Period. It is a disgrace that Michael Mukasey refuses to confirm that he believes waterboarding constitutes torture and would therefore prevent the Bush administration from using it on captured terror suspects or suspected insurgents. This is one issue on which there is no room for compromise or nuance. It is abominable that this is even a debate and a sad reminder of how far we have fallen from the moral high ground that we once held in this country.

As Malcolm Nance argues in his protestation against the use of waterboarding, if Americans engage in this activity we allow our enemies to use it without any hesitation or consideration of the negative impacts it might have on their cause (except, perhaps, being compared to America). To quote Mr. Nance:

Waterboarding will be one our future enemy’s go-to techniques because we took the gloves off to brutal interrogation. Now our enemies will take the gloves off and thank us for it.

I generally think that calls to impeach George W. Bush are ridiculous and distracting from real issues. However, this is one charge I could stand behind proudly (if I didn’t think that Cheney would be far worse). The use of torture is a violation not only of the Geneva Conventions but also of our Constitution and of general human decency. The is no room for this in civilized society or in America. Perhaps we would be better off if someone reminded our government of that.

Does Bonus Pay Make Sense?

There was an interesting op-ed piece in the New York Times today about how insulting it is to offer teachers bonuses if their students perform better. The author notes that the idea that teachers will respond to incentives by working hard necessarily implies that teachers are not already working as hard as they can to make sure their students achieve.

Yes there are people out there who work hard because they derive pleasure from the sense of accomplishment and the knowledge that they did their best. But there are also many people out there who do just enough to continue bringing in paychecks. Performance based pay is one way to make sure that people are not “mailing it in”.

Yes bonuses can be perceived as insulting to people who do try their best, but given the current state of education in New York (especially given the level of per student spending) performance-based pay should be given a shot. If union-imposed rules remove the ability to recognize success you not only remove many incentives to do a good job but you also remove the non-monetary benefits that hard workers derive from success.

Is compromise on SCHIP now necessary?

Yesterday the House of Representatives failed to override President Bush’s veto of an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. I’ve written on this issue a couple of times but I think now we are actually close to real progress.  Since Speaker Pelosi couldn’t muster enough votes Congress may be forced to trim a little fat.

While I will admit that Bush’s modest $5 billion expansion of the program is too stingy, not even allowing enough funding to maintain the current number of children enrolled, the Congressional bill does not do enough to limit spending and ensure that the bill helps the children it was originally intended to help first.

One of Bush’s conditions is that States must ensure that 95% of already eligible children have health insurance before expanding eligibility to higher income brackets.  Does anyone think this is unreasonable?  For all the Congressional squawking about how Bush wants to steal healthcare from poor children why is there opposition to this?  Bush needs to come to the table and compromise, but so does the Congressional leadership.  This bill should be passed, but I will be very disheartened if there are not measures that require at least some constraint on the states to enroll the poorest children before expanding eligibility to wealthier (and older!) ones.

Academic Ethics?

I was reading an op-ed in the WSJ yesterday (subscription may be required) about the unwillingness of academia to study its own ethics while devoting significant time and money to studying and reviewing the ethics of other professions. The money quote, from a list of ethical issues posed by the author:

In accordance with what principles may a university bar ROTC from campus because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” concerning homosexuals, while inviting to campus a foreign leader whose country not only punishes private consensual homosexual sex but is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and who himself denies the Holocaust and threatens to obliterate the sovereign state of Israel?

This raises serious questions about the integrity, academic honesty, and motives involved in both Columbia’s decision regarding ROTC and Ahmadinejad. Why is this acceptable? Unfortunately academia is completely isolated and universities like Columbia who engage in this type of intellectual dishonesty will continue to receive far more applications than they can accept, simply because of their name. How long until people start voting with their feet against things like this?