Why liberals lose

For a certain type of liberal, good intentions are far more important than good outcomes. Thus they are far more interested in making emotional statements about the need for more money for schools than making sure that the money being spent is actually helping students. In some cases, in fact, the high-minded statements about the need for more money are much more important than figuring out how more money could be obtained. Schools Now finds this tendency particularly frustrating because he usually sympathizes with liberal goals.

Two articles in the Sunday Journal Sentinel illustrate this face of liberalism. Onedescribed the rally of a group a churches, who promise "to vote against candidates in the Nov. 2 election who fail to support alternatives to prison, better funding for public education and greater civil rights for immigrants." There seemed to be no discussion of--or a recognition of the need to consider--how to make these goals compatible with an environment obsessed with cutting spending and taxes.

The other described an ad campaign by the state teachers' union. (To view the ad, click on this link.) It shows a group of "politicians and profiteers" discussing how to increase class sizes, cut programs, increase testing to fail more schools, "let the market decide" who gets educated, and privatize the schools. Eventually we realize they are sitting in a classroom and the teacher throws them out, accusing them of interfering with her ability to teach. The announcer comments the "state and federal interference are threatening the quality of our schools."

In both of these, intentions are everything. Whether the proposals discussed have a positive or negative effect is irrelevant. Unfortunately, obsession with intentions leads to a failure to propose plausible solutions to problems, so liberals as a group come to viewed as irrelevant.