Day: December 4, 2025

https://x.com/TurningPointOU/status/1994156726225129932?s=20

As a college student, I wrote many bad papers. As a college professor, I’ve graded hundreds of bad papers. I have also observed and criticized the manufactured culture wars of the right, such as the War on Christmas and rage about made up claims about Dr. Seuss and potato themed toys. I suspected it would only be a matter of time before a badly written college paper became part of the manufactured culture war.

On November 27, 2025 the Oklahoma Turning Point USA chapter tweeted “Transgender professor fails her student for quoting the Bible in her essay.” The posts asserts,  “We should not be letting mentally ill professors around students. Clearly this professor lacks the intellectual maturity to set her own bias aside and take grading seriously. Professors like this are the very reason conservatives can’t voice their beliefs in the classroom.” Given this claim, one might expect proof of a deranged professor. Interestingly, they posted what they claim is the full text of the student’s essay as well as what they claim are the comments made by the instructor and another professor. This post has set off another battle in the culture war, with the instructor being suspended and even the governor of the state getting involved.

If you read the essay, you will see that it is objectively not very good, although I would have assigned a better score than 0/25 if only because I am a kind grader and the student clearly wrote it herself and did not turn in AI generated text. If you read the instructors’ comments, they begin by making it clear that the grade is not based on the student’s beliefs and then go through, in careful and respectful detail, why the paper did not meet the requirements of the assignment. Reading through the paper and these comments, it is evident that the paper was evaluated fairly, albeit with a lower score than I would have assigned. But my fellow professors often say that I am far too kind.

In a better world, the student would have complained to the professor and perhaps gotten a chance to revise the paper so that it completed the assignment. But we do not live in that better world. As noted above, MAGA is “losing their minds” over the paper and it is now another manufactured fight in the manufactured culture war. But what is the point of this fight?

When I went to the post on X, I was surprised to see that they posted the essay and what they claimed were the comments by the instructor. As the sometimes savage and unkind comments on X noted, the essay is not very good (but about what one would expect from a rushed assignment near the end of the semester). As the comments also correctly note, the professor did not fail the student because they quoted the Bible or because of their views. The comments make it clear that the work did not meet the requirements of the assignment, which is a legitimate basis for a low grade. In a better world, people would look at the paper and comments and conclude the obvious: the grade of zero might be a bit harsh, but the paper was evaluated on its merits. There is no injustice here beyond what every student feels exists when they do not get the grade they want. But we do not live in that better world. So here is what seems to be going on.

First, when many on the right want to create a conflict, the truth does not matter. See, for example, the absurd War on Christmas or the claim that migrants are eating cats and dogs. Based on the response from the right, they do not care whether the essay was graded fairly, and they do not care what the professor wrote. They might believe in what they regard as a deeper truth about colleges and the veracity of any particular piece of “evidence” does not matter. They might know the truth but also know that the MAGA base either will not know or care. They might also have the sincere belief that the paper is good because they agree with the content. People do, after all, fall victim to belief bias in which they think that if they agree with a claim, then the reasoning for that claim must be good. But, as I point out to my students, there can obviously be bad arguments for claims that you agree with. I use the example of the debate between St. Anselm and Gaunilo over Anselm’s ontological argument to illustrate this: Gaunilo and Anselm both believed in God, but Gaunilo was critical of Anselm’s argument. I pick this explicitly because it involves God to show that even in a religious context there can critical assessment of arguments. But to be fair, this level of critical thought is difficult and is certainly discouraged by politicians, pundits and leaders.

Second, I suspect that the person posting the essay knows that it is bad and that the comments were reasonable. While this might seem absurd, it actually makes sense. By creating controversy with a poorly written essay with reasonable comments that resulted in the instructor being suspended and garnering nationwide attention, a clear message has been sent to intimidate professors: grade in accord with our ideology or be punished.  This will, as people like to say, have a chilling effect. It also provides unscrupulous students with a tool to improve their grades and intimidate professors, which is probably intended.  It will also do students a disservice by teaching them that if they express the right ideology, they are exempt from rational assessment and consequences. Which, one suspects, is another lesson this is supposed to teach.  

While people who voted once again for Donald Trump gave various reasons for their choice, some say they chose him because he is a businessman, and they see government as a business. While some might be tempted to dismiss this as mere parroting of political rhetoric, the question of whether the state is a business is worth considering.

The state (that is, the people who occupy various roles) does engage in some business like behavior. For example, the state engages in contracts for products and services. As another example, the state does charge for some goods and services. As a third example, the state does engage in economic deals with other states. As such, it is indisputable that the state does business. However, this is distinct from being a business. To use an analogy, most of us routinely engage in business like behavior, yet this does not make us businesses. So, for the state to be a business, there must be something more to it than merely engaging in some business-like behavior.

One approach is the legal one. Businesses tend to be defined by the relevant laws, especially corporations. As it now stands, the United States government is not legally defined as a business. This could, of course, be changed by law. But such a legal status would not, by itself, be terribly interesting philosophically. After all, the question is not “is there a law that says the state is a business?” but “is the state a business?”

To take the usual Socratic approach, the proper starting point is working out a useful definition of business. Since this is a short essay, the definition also needs to be succinct. The easy and obvious way to define a business in capitalism is as an entity that provides goods or services (which can be abstract) in return for economic compensation with the goal of making a profit.

While there are government owned corporations that operate as businesses, the government itself does not seem to fit this definition. One reason is that while the state does provide goods and services, many are provided without explicit economic compensation. Some also receive goods and services without providing any compensation to the state. For example, some corporations can exploit tax laws so they can avoid paying any taxes even while receiving government subsidies and contracts.

While this seems to indicate that the state is not a business (or is perhaps a badly run business), there is also the question of whether the state should operate this way. In his essay on civil disobedience, Henry David Thoreau suggested that people should have an essentially transactional relationship with the state. That is, they should pay for the goods and services they use, as they would do with any business. For example, a person who used the state roads would pay for this use via the highway tax. This approach does have some appeal.

One part of the appeal is ethical. Thoreau’s motivation was not to be a cheapskate, but to avoid contributing to government activities he saw as morally wrong. Two evils he wished to avoid funding were the Mexican-American war and slavery. Since the state routinely engages in activities some citizens find morally problematic (such as subsidizing corporations), this would allow people to act in accord with their values and influence the state directly by “voting” with their dollars. The idea is that just as a conventional business will give the customers what they are willing to pay for, the state as business would do the same thing.

Another part of the appeal is economic as people would only pay for what they use and many probably believe that this approach would cost them less than paying taxes. For example, a person who has no kids in the public schools would not pay for the schools, thus saving them money. There are, of course, some practical concerns that would need to be worked out here. For example, should people be allowed to provide their own police services and thus avoid paying for these services? As another example, there is the challenge of working out how the billing would be calculated and implemented. Fortunately, this is a technical challenge that existing business have already addressed, albeit on a much smaller scale. However, this is not just a matter of technical challenges.

An obvious problem is that there are people and organizations who cannot afford to pay for the services they need (or want) from the state. For example, people who receive food stamps or unemployment benefits obviously cannot pay the value for these goods. If they had the money to pay for them, they would not need them. As another example, companies that benefit from United States military interventions and foreign policy would be hard pressed to pay the full cost of these operations. As a third example, it would be absurd for companies that receive subsidies to pay for these subsidies. If they did, they would not be subsidies. The company would just give the state money to hand back to it, which would just be a waste of time. The same would apply to student financial aid and similar individual subsidies.

It could be replied that this is acceptable, those who cannot pay for the goods and services will be forced to work harder to be able to pay for what they need. Just as a person who wants to have a car must work to earn it, a person who wants to have police or fire protection must also work to earn it. If they cannot do so, then it will become a self-correcting problem as they die in fires or are killed by criminals. Naturally, the state could engage in some limited charity, much like businesses sometimes do. The state could also extend credit to citizens who are down on their luck or even conscript them so they can work off their debts to the state.

The counter to this is to argue that the state should not operate like a business because it has obligations that go beyond those imposed by payments for goods or services. The challenge is, of course, to argue for the basis of this obligation.

A second reason the state is not a business is that it is not supposed to operate to make a profit . This is not merely because the United States government spends more than it brings in, but because it does not even aim at making a profit. This is not to say that profits are not made by individuals, just that the state as a whole does not run on this model. This is presumably fortunate for the state, few other entities could operate at a deficit for so long without ceasing to be.

There is, of course, the question of whether the state should aim to operate at a profit. This, it must be noted, is distinct from the state operating with a balanced budget or even having a surplus of money. In the case of balancing the budget, the goal is to ensure that all expenditure is covered by the income of the state. While aiming at a surplus might seem to be the same as aiming for a profit, the difference lies in the intent. The usual goal of achieving a budget surplus is analogous to the goal of an individual trying to save money for future expenses.

In the case of profit, the goal would be for the state to make money beyond what is needed for current and future expenses. As with all profit making, this would require creating that profit gap between the cost of the good or service and what the customer pays for it. This could be done by underpaying those providing the goods and services or overcharging those receiving them, both of which might seem morally problematic for a government.

Profit, by its nature, must go to someone. For example, the owner of a small business gets the profits. As another example, the shareholders in a corporation get some of the profits. In the case of the government, there is the question of who should get the profit. One possibility is that all the citizens get a share of the profits, although this would just be re-paying citizens what they were either overcharged or underpaid. An alternative is to allow people to buy additional shares in the federal government, thus running it like a publicly traded corporation. China and Russia would presumably want to buy some of these stocks in the United States.

One argument for the profit approach is that it motivates people; so perhaps some of the profits of the state could go to government officials. The rather obvious concern here is that this would be a great motivator for corruption and abuse. For example, imagine if all courts aimed to operate at a profit for the judges and prosecutors. It could be contended that the market will work it out, just like it does in the private sector. The easy and obvious counter to this is that the private sector is well known for its corruption.

A second argument for the profit option is that it leads to greater efficiency. After all, every reduction in the cost of providing goods and services means more profits. While greater efficiency is desirable, there is the concern that costs would be reduced in harmful ways. For example, government employees might be underpaid. As another example, corners might be cut on quality and safety. The operation of for-profit prisons and universities provide tow cautionary tales about how a for-profit government would be bad for those outside the ruling class.  It can be countered that the current system is also problematic since there is no financial incentive to be efficient. An easy reply to this is that there are other incentives to be efficient. One of these is limited resources, people must be efficient to get their jobs done using what they have been provided with. Another is professionalism.

In light of the above discussion, while the state should aim at being efficient, it should not be a business.