The Daily Top Five: February 7, 2007

1. Professor Eugene Volokh has a great piece looking at an article that appears in The American Muslim called Combating Defamation of Religions, in which the articles author points to recent U.N. resolutions that promote

A new value is emerging in the realm of the peoples' rights. Now two years in a row, the United Nations General Assembly has passed a resolution called, Combating Defamation of Religions. Although the Defamation Resolution applies to all religions, it highlights "the negative projection of Islam in the media and the introduction and enforcement of laws that specifically discriminate against and target Muslims." (Emphasis Added)

Prof. Volokh then points out the slippery slope

A narrow exception for so-called racial or ethnic "hate speech" is adopted (often partly based on grounds that racial or ethnic hostility is illogical because it turns on irrelevant traits such as people's skin color). Then it's broadened to cover religious "hate speech," though religion is ideology and hostility to people based on their ideology is at least more sensible than hostility based on race. (Though I think that religious hostility is generally unjustified despite this, there is an important distinction between racial and religious hostility — but a distinction that many foreign hate speech laws disregard.)

Then this is used as an analogy to support proposed bans on "defamation of religion" generally, a category that's considerably broader than calls for discrimination or violence against the people who adhere to the religion. After all, almost all countries restrict "hate speech"; that broad acceptance suggests (the argument goes) that the restrictions are indeed sound; why not extend them a little further? And of course once we slip down to restrictions on defamation of religion, those restrictions in turn can be used as analogies to support further restrictions.

Subsequently, Volokh discusses the impact on American Freedom of Speech if the U.N. Resolutions become treaties to which the United States might become a signatory. A very interesing read indeed.

2. The Peanut, my oldest daughter is well on her way to reading even though she has yet to begin even Kindergarten. Much, no doubt, has to do with teh prevelance of books in our household and the pretty much daily reading we do with the Peanut and Houdini (our youngest daughter). Still, while I am sure my daughters' reading skills will be more than adequate for their educational needs, not everyone is in the same boat. When programs like Reading First, came along, the more I read about it the better I liked it. Now, the Office of Management and Budget has given Reading First its higest rating, one of only four programs in the Department of Education to get that rating. Ken DeRosa has more. As a bonus, Ken also has this post, which anecdotally demonstrates the effectiveness of the program.

3. Charter schools are succeeeding in Georgia at an incredible rate. Although detractors often look at charter school test data in the early years of operation, see no difference or even lesser performance than traditional public schools, there is little evidence of trends that is offered up. The report on Georgia chater schools provides that trend data:

These numbers are even more impressive when one looks at the trend data over time. In 2004, for instance, only 60 percent of charter schools students passed the Social Studies section of the GHSGT, compared to 82 percent of traditional public school students. While traditional public school student performance remained relatively stable over the subsequent two-year period, charter school student performance increased dramatically, to a 92 percent pass rate.

A 32 point jump in proficiency over two years means someone is doing something right. Most charter schools serve poor and underprivileged students, improving their performance is a long term sruggle and one that shows only when looking at trend data.

4. Rick Moran of the Right Wing Nut House takes on those who ignore the threat posed by terrorists and other who have vowed to do the United States harm:

I pity David Bell. And, in a way, I envy him. To be so oblivious to the threat posed by organizations like al-Qaeda and the ever burgeoning list of imitators and wannabes involved in international terrorism takes a special sort of myopia, a blissful blindness that lays a blanket of serenity over those who are arrogant enough or delusional enough to indulge in such fantasies.

It goes on from there and Moran's take down is none to pretty.

5. Finally, Philip Mella has a strong viewpoint about the Politics of Education in America:

So it is in our educational system which is arguably the place most overrun by the weeds of political correctness. There our children are taught everything from condom etiquette to how our Founding Fathers were racist and misogynistic, but not how our unique tripartite system of government provides unprecedented civic safeguards and check and balances against the tyranny of the majority.

[snip]

Given the brazen and transparent way in which many educators intellectually abuse our children one might think there would be a revolt afoot. Well, there is, and it takes the form of vouchers, magnet schools, and home schooling, all of which grow each year commensurately with the number of hard working Americans who refuse to have their tax dollars used turn their kids into budding Boulderites.

Mella is responding to this column from the Rocky Mountain News.