Re: a reflection on ESEA

[kber <kber@EARTHLINK.NET>]

George Cunningham wrote:

> Ken,
>
> In case you didn't notice a Republican president was elected in 2000.  He
> has approval ratings up in the eighties.  Is it a shock that he is
> implementing conservative policies?  That is why he was elected.

I'll respond to two of your posts at the same time, Mr. C.

1)   Ashcroft's singing is hardly his role as Attorney General, which is one
aspect of why I forwarded it.  But also, he can't sing very well.  And yet, if
you remember, he feels that his dignity was being assailed by standing in front
of the statue of Justice.  And, at least according to the Guardian story, he
has tried to impose his song upon employees, this after having all but mandated
that senior employees pray with him when he first arrived.  He can be a devout
zoroastrian for all i care, but in his role as attroney general he should not
be imposing his personal views.  Further, he promised to uphold the law,
regardless of his personal views.  Whic leads to

2)  the positions taking legally by this adminstration, especially with respect
to hwo "suspected" terrorists have been hodl without access to counsel, family,
etc, for extended periods, often without being charged, is in iitself not only
a vilation of law, but gives justification to people who seize Americans to
treat them with lack of respect
3)  Finally, you assume Bush was elected.  Remember that even if he did truly
win the Florida vote (which under a fair interpretation of Flroida law, if the
undervotes werre counted, and if the legitimate overvotes where people punched
an wrote in the same name were counted [Florida law requires that a vote be
counted if the voter's intent can be clearly ascertained;  and by the way,
under a Texas law signed by Nush when governer indented chad ballots counted
when manually examined - so if Bush wants to impose Texas educational standards
maybe he should have been willing to live by texas voting standards], and if
all those whose registration was being challenged had been allowed as they are
supposedto be tunder Florid law to cast provisional ballots, there is little
doubt that Gore carries the state by in excess of 10,000 votes.  Heck, absent
the overseas ballots which arrived late, which were allowed for 10 days under a
Federal court agreement that had applied to only one particular election and
which the Leon County judge was preparing to throw out before Ben Ginsberg
wisely pulled the Republican law suit on the issue, Bush loses the state by
around 250 votes.  Even absent all that (a) he trailed Gore by more than half a
million - in otherwords, Gore's popular vote margin was almost 5 times that of
Jack Kennedy  (b) he lost seats in both the House and the Senate  ---   thus

he was not given a mandate for an extremely conservative stance, nor did he
campaign as an extreme conservative.   So I find your remarks somewhat out of
line.

Now, my remarks about Palmer and about the potential attack on the Bill of
Rights are not made up out of whole clothe, or becaus I am some flaming liberal
- in many ways I am not.  There are a fair number of even conservative legal
scholars who have questions both the actions of the administration and some of
the provisions of the Patriot act.

having said all that, Mr. C, as I already noted in a previous response in one
of these threads, at least one of my posts was more than a little bit tongue in
cheek.

Maybe the reason you couldn't grasp it was that it was expressed in qualitative
terms, and like many psychometricians, you can't handle anything you can't
quantify?

[btw  -  that is also a tongue in cheek, qualitative remark.  So don't get your
shorts in a bunch].


have a nice night.


KB

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