[Kudos to Terry Corcoran for coming up with an alternative title for this blog post: Brendan’s Grand Unified Theory of PANIC!!!!!! Hahaha. Brilliant. -ed.]
I had an interesting conversation with Melissa Clouthier (and, chiming in at one point, Doug Mataconis) on Twitter today. It started with me criticizing Melissa for, in my view, propagating patently unfair criticisms about President Obama, primarily or exclusively in the name of pointing out alleged media hypocrisy (i.e., for making similarly unfair criticisms of Bush, but not doing so with Obama). I argued that emulating the media’s unfairness made Melissa part of the problem, not part of the solution. Melissa responded, if I may paraphrase, that I was missing the forest for the trees, and failing to focus adequately on the media’s “abdication of duty.” It got heated at times.
Eventually, however, the conversation turned to something broader, and I filibustered a bit, as I am wont to do, even when I’m limited to 140 characters at time. 🙂 The end result was, I think, a pretty good summation of my global beliefs about the state of the nation right now. So I wanted to post it here. WARNING: It contains some profanity.
I won’t link to the individual tweets, as that would be too cumbersome. Also, I changed some Twitterspeak abbreviations to more readable prose, and excluded a few irrelevant asides. And I’ve had to re-order and re-shuffle parts of the conversation so that it will make sense to the reader and will accurately represent what Melissa and I were responding to. This was difficult because, at times, we were “talking over each other,” and responding to earlier points even as new points were being made. But I think this reproduction is faithful to the substance of the conversation, on both ends (although, see the “editor’s note” at the end). Anyway, I’ll pick it up at the point where the topic started to broaden…
[NOTE: Conservatives won’t much care for roughly the first half of the quoted discussion below. It gets broader, and more trans-ideological, starting with Melissa’s comment, “There isn’t nuance in politics. I don’t believe there ever has been.” And what follows after that is the really important part, IMHO. I included the earlier parts for context, and because there are a few choice quotes in there. But the trans-ideological stuff is what I’m really getting at here. So, feel free to respond on the narrower ideological issues, but understand that they don’t drive my overall thesis. Whether the Right or the Left is more to blame is, for me, sort of beside the point. I see the rot in society going much deeper than any ideology or party. To the extent that one party or another is “worse,” that’s more a symptom than a cause. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s my take.]
Melissa: I bristle at the moderating tone argument. It always benefits Democrat ideology. They want the opposition to shut up.
Me: I’m not asking you to “moderate tone.” I’m asking you to make defensible arguments based on facts, rationality and logic. To un-ironically propagate concededly unfair criticisms of Obama, whatever your motive, is to further the cause of divorcing political discourse from reality and reason. This is not an issue of “tone,” but of substance. So much of the discourse, on both sides, is based on sheer bullshit, propaganda, nonsense, obvious illogic and outright lies.
Melissa: Okay, then let’s argue substance. But the sides you speak of are lopsided. Horribly. The Press does not present facts.
Me: Neither does the Right-Wing Alternative Media, for the most part. Nobody’s presenting facts, and the public isn’t demanding them.
Also, the meme of conservative powerlessness vs. the Almighty Liberal Media is soooo 1990s. Bias remains real, but the biased old guard (NYT/networks/etc.) have far less power than they once did. And the new guard is as bad, if not worse. Instead of promoting a truly fairer and more balanced discourse, we’re splintering into increasingly unhinged sub-discourses. As an archetypal example of said unhinged discourse once said, “I fear for our country.”
It honestly makes me feel almost hopeless. The Obama Administration has done nothing to change this. If 2012 is Obama vs. Palin, it will be the perfect shitstorm of rhetorical ridiculousness. I honestly may shut the blog till it’s over. I can’t handle it! 😐
*Melissa: I hate it too. It’s horrible. But I don’t see any sign of rhetorical or ideological coming together. President Obama policy divides.
Me: I already acknowledged that Obama has done nothing to change it. Though saying his “policy divides” misses the point. When you say “Obama policy divides,” what you mean is, “I disagree with Obama policy.” Bush policy “divided” too. Americans will always have disagreements about policy. The key is to air and discuss those disagreements honestly and logically.
Melissa: There isn’t nuance in politics. I don’t believe there ever has been.Me: Perhaps not, but there weren’t always so many actors so effectively and purposely trying to drown out any and all nuance.
As a country, we increasingly aren’t [airing and discussing disagreements honestly and logically]. It wasn’t some utopia before, but it’s getting worse and worse. I see little hope it will improve.
I fear meta-trends in all sorts of fields are moving us inexorably toward a very bad place. Someone way smarter than me should do a multidisciplinary Ph.D. thesis tying it all together. Suggested title: “Hell, Meet Handbasket.” Dishonest discourse, polarization, propaganda, endless debt, personal and government irresponsibility, bad governance: all are related.
Melissa: They are. America is at a cross-roads. Americans have to decide what they want. I don’t feel the question is settled.
Me: Yes but they’re deciding among various non-viable, fairy-tale choices. I think, or at least fear, that America is at something closer to an event-horizon than a cross-roads. #pessimism
Melissa: I hope not. But I fear you may be right.
Me: There was a time when we, as a nation, could take on truly big challenges and overcome them. I’m no longer sure we can.
Doug: Brendan, in an era when every crisis is used as an opportunity for partisan attacks, I know we can’t.
Me: When there’s always someone convincingly telling you fairy tales about the world, and distracting you from real problems with shiny objects and faux-outrages, and telling you everything’s a false choice, and you can have your cake and eat it too, who is ever going to make a tough decision? What will inspire voters to demand it? And if we don’t, why would our representaives?
Politicians know that anything necessary but potentially unpopular will be effectively demagogued to death. Thus, little is even attempted. So we will continue to live in fairy-tale land, until it’s too late, and maybe even then. #greece At least that’s my fear.
And, by the way, I dearly wish the Tea Partiers were the antidote to this. But alas. They “get” a tiny part of it, but miss much of it, and spin their own fairy tales that ultimately make them somewhere between useless and part of the problem.
My only solace is the generic belief that crises are usually overstated in pessimists’ minds. Grumpy Old Men are usually wrong. Doom is always imminent, The End is always nigh, and yet somehow we muddle through, and in the end, actually thrive. But in this case, I feel the crisis is so profound and foundational and trans-ideological, my generic optimism is outweighed by specific pessimism. And thus have I become a Grumpy Old Man at the tender age of 28. #GetOffMyLawn
*EDITOR’S NOTE: When Melissa said “I hate it too. It’s horrible,” she was responding to the paragraph immediately preceding that statement in the above rendering of our conversation (beginning “It honestly makes me feel almost hopeless”). However, I had not yet written the two paragraphs before that. Because of the “talking over each other” problem, I couldn’t find any other sensible way to present the conversation, but in fairness to Melissa, I don’t want to leave the misimpression that she was acknowledging that I’m correct about the flaws of “the Right-Wing Alternative Media” or the “increasingly unhinged sub-discourses.” She didn’t respond directly to those points. What she was apparently saying she “hates” and agrees is “horrible” is “the perfect shitstorm of rhetorical ridiculousness” and (possibly) the fact that “so much of the discourse, on both sides, is based on sheer bullshit, propaganda, nonsense, obvious illogic and outright lies.” That, at least, is what I had just said when she responded with “I hate it too. It’s horrible.”
UPDATE From comments, an even more depressing (if that’s actually possible) addendum to my thoughts on this meta-topic:
The public has seemingly lost the ability to discern the difference between facts and propaganda, between truth and lies, between real solutions and fairy tales. Or maybe the public at large never had that ability, but in ages long past, the fact that only the “educated elites” really had electoral power prevented the general public’s faults from mattering, and in the more recent past, the unwashed masses sort of trusted our elite cultural masters to make these decisions for us… but now the cultural empowerment of the “common man” has ruined that balance, and left us to the rule of the Lowest Common Denominator, the successful manipulation of which is now nearing perfection after decades of experimentation by the masters of advertising and propaganda, political and otherwise. This isn’t just politics I’m talking about: the ability of Jenny McCarthy to drive public discussion on complex scientific topics, the ascendancy of reality TV at the expense of real entertainment with redeeming social value, the success of massive corporate conglomerates in convincing us that valueless processed crap is “food” … all of these things are intimately related.
In the end, mine is a highly elitist position, because it’s basically an attack on human nature, and the ease with which human reaction can be controlled through clever, technologically and psychologically sophisticated manipulation. It’s too easy to blame Republicans, or the media, or whomever your preferred culprit is. At the end of the day, we are the problem. We, The People have made this mess. And only We, The People can get ourselves out of it. Except, actually, I’m not sure we can.
Maybe the Mayan calendar was right**, and 2012 is the end of the world, but only in the sense that it’s the end of humanity’s heretofore virtually unstoppable march toward progress. Maybe 2012 is when we start inexorably regressing as a society and a species, because of these many factors that I’m hinting at, though I’m not nearly insightful enough to really summarize them properly (like I said, I truly think there’s an award-winning Ph.D. thesis in this, but I’m not smart enough to write it). The beginning of humanity’s regression would qualify as an Apocalypse of sorts.
**Yes, I know the Mayan calendar doesn’t actually say the world ends in 2012.
I realize I’m blurring lines here, and morphing from a discussion of America into a discussion of humanity. In so doing, I’m not making the mistake of assuming that America is the only collection of humans that matters. Rather, although I don’t follow overseas developments as closely as I follow what’s happening here in the good ol’ U.S.A., I’m going off the general impression that the developments I describe are not unique to our country, but are — to one degree or another — impacting other developed countries, too. (Developing and undeveloped countries have their own set of problems, obviously. Though in the end, we’re so interconnected that, for purposes of this discussion, we are really one global “society.”)
Arguably, the core of the “thesis” I keep mentioning is that advanced societies necessarily reach some tipping point, as the adoption of democracy leads to the ascendancy of the common man, which causes the elites to eventually realize how effectively they can manipulate the common man, which leads to democracies becoming ungovernable, which leads either to dictatorships or non-functioning societies (or both). Possibly the only question is whether such societies — the plural here is multi-planetary, since again, for purposes of this discussion, Earth is really one “society” — blow themselves up with nuclear bombs before they collapse internally from cultural decay.
If this incredibly depressing theory (which I’m not necessarily saying I agree with, but it seems, at a minimum, plausible) is correct, and if it’s applicable to all intelligent life forms that come into being in the natural course of biological evolution on any planet — a big if — it would help explain why we haven’t had contact with any advanced intelligent beings from other worlds. Maybe it’s written into the very fabric of life that life-forms can’t really advance much beyond where we’re at now, because intelligent beings will naturally gravitate toward some form of democracy (it being, by far, the most facially just form of government), and any form of democracy will naturally implode eventually, because it would take a helluva lot more biological evolution before the masses are actually ready to handle the sort of power that they will inevitably grant themselves once they reach a minimal level of intelligence and interconnectedness and cultural sophistication. And — at this point, a religious person might add — maybe this is all part of God’s Plan, as it is ultimately what prevents us from becoming rivals to God, and/or from creating Heaven on Earth. Or something like that. I’m not a religious person, so I’m on shaky ground there. Hell, I’m on shaky ground with all of this. Like I keep saying, recruit someone smarter than me, and get them working on the damn thesis already. The future of our doomed society may depend on it. Now GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU DAMN KIDS!! 🙂
P.S. Do you see what I mean about how the thesis would have to be “multidisciplinary”? I started out talking about politics and the media (Political Science, Journalism and Communications would be the relevant disciplines, with a dash of History perhaps), but eventually, you get into Sociology, Psychology, Economics, Biology, Astronomy, Philosophy, Theology… and a bunch of others I’m not even thinking of, no doubt. Oh, also advertising and marketing, if those count as disciplines. And the study of advances in technology, of various sorts — not sure what discipline that falls into, but it’s a huge part of this.
UPDATE 2: Upon further reflection, with regard to my speculation about other societies on other planets, it occurs me that the “big if” I mentioned is probably even bigger than I initially thought, because of a discipline I failed to mention: Geography. Even if the basic principles of evolution are the same everywhere, as seems likely, the geographies of other worlds would have a profound impact on how their species evolve and their societies develop, in ways I can’t begin to imagine, but that could very well significantly alter my premises.
More broadly, I’d say the apocalyptic/decline-of-humanity stuff at the end of my comment to David, and the alien worlds/biological determinism stuff at the end of the above “UPDATE,” are the weakest parts of my “thesis,” or anyway the least provable and most subject to legitimately strong skepticism. I think those ideas make for some very interesting thought experiments, but perhaps not much more than that.
But it isn’t necessary to believe that humanity at large is entering an irreversible civilizational decline, one that probably necessarily afflicts all advanced intelligent life in the universe, in order to get at the core of my point. If the meta-trends I’m observing, or think I’m observing, point “merely” to the decline of America — empires do, after all, fall — and perhaps to a global decline of democracy itself (consistent with my dim, Derbyshire-esque view of human nature writ large, and with my elitist hypothesis about the inherent frailties of the common man, and also not inconsistent with, say, the potential rise of China), that’s plenty sufficient to warrant pessimism.
And that pessimism is personal for me, because I’ve got kids. It’s a long-cherished American ideal that we want our kids to have a better life than we do, and I certainly want that for my girls. But I fear for the state of the country, and the world, that they’re going to grow up in. I hope I’m wrong about all this, and the Grumpy Old Man all-is-lost, the-end-is-nigh, we’re-doomed-DOOMED hypothesis will be disproven yet again. That’s certainly happened plenty of times throughout history. But I worry.
P.P.S. I mentioned Derbyshire. Here’s a cheery quote, from the linked 2002 article: “We are living in a golden age. The past was pretty awful; the future will be far worse. Enjoy!” Heh.
UPDATE 3: Here is Melissa’s take on our conversation. It’s well worth reading in its entirety.
P.P.P.S. Somewhat related, from Andrew Sullivan’s blog, this quote about the Gulf oil spill — “If we cannot stop this, what else can we not stop?” — and a reader’s reply:
Exactly my own response these last few days. Honestly, I have not reacted to anything with this much impotent despair since 9/11. Not even Abu Ghraib and our collective, in effect, non-reaction to it made me feel more negative about the likely course of our society in the remaining decades of my lifetime.
I don’t participate in the apotheosis some baby boomers indulge of the so-called Greatest Generation. But the thought keeps coming to mind that if today’s American society were faced with situations as complex and terrible as the first half of the 20th century, we’d probably be living with a Nazi Europe and the aftermath of having preemptively nuked the Soviet Union.
Collectively we have lost any ability to make a hard decision, to accept that every action has consequences (as does every refused call to action) and to actually sacrifice, individually and collectively, to keep a terrible situation from becoming more terrible. If we can’t drill anywhere on the planet in pursuit of unlimited oil without destroying entire regional ecologies…well, then hey I guess we’re just screwed. If we can’t just invade the next country on our shit list and stop global Islamic terrorism…well then WTF are we supposed to do? If it turns out that the “wealth” we thought our households possessed was just a temporary accounting fiction…well that doesn’t mean we should have to quit spending money like it’s 2004.
The reader concludes that “there is truly nothing to be done about anything.” Sullivan titled the post “The Audacity Of Hopelessness.”
There was a time when we, as a nation, could take on truly big challenges and overcome them. I’m no longer sure we can.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.”
The overriding problem with the country is that we can no longer agree on what the facts are.
Sincerely, another 28-year-old grumpy old man.
The problem is that one side overwhelmingly ignores facts in favor of ideology. When you have one group of people who are unwilling to trust, no matter the circumstances, overwhelming evidence and instead focus on the tiniest little bits and pieces that support their view when taken out of context, you can’t have a fact based discussion.
You could provide 100 pages of facts supporting global warming to the Tea Partiers and the vast majority of them would use a typo on page 38 as proof the whole thing is wrong.
In other words, while I agree that both sides have issues and contribute to the problem, it seems to me based on what i’ve seen and experienced that one of those sides is contributing dissproportionatly and dramatically more to it.
While the traditional mainstream media might lean slightly left, Fox News leans dramatically right, for example.
Further the idea that the solution is to create either two equal competing ideological groups or to have one that provides equal weight to all arguments from both sides is fundementally flawed because it assumes that arguments from both sides are inherently equally valid. The ideological left and right in this country don’t spring out of the natural laws of the world as equal and opposite forces as if compeled to by Newton’s laws. They are constructs of the world around us and our own opinions and therefore can be in complete imbalance. All we need to demonstrate that is to view how the splits in political views have shifted over time. The “right” and “left” of today don’t map to the “right” and “left” of 200 years ago.
On top of all THAT it presents a false choice as if the two platfroms and positions advocated by the two sides are the only legitimate options.
In everyday life we are all presented with problem, often multiple problems. We also all have limited time and resources to confront problems. Most rational people will allocate more time and resources to difficult problems, and less to simpler ones.
Lets say you own a house and you have two plumbing related problems. A leaky faucet in your bathroom and a broken pipe in your kitchen. Which of these is the bigger deal? Which of these is the root cause of your frustrations and needs to be addressed first and with more effort? You could spend an equal amount of time on both, but the less time you spend on the broken pipe, the more damage is done. The smart person, the rational person, focusses on the part of the problem thats doing the most damage and fixes that first and foremost, acknowloding that the other problems exist.
The political make up of our country is a plumbing problem. The Democrats, who have their flaws are a leaky faucet. The Republicans are a broken pipe, gushing one problem after another on our country for the past decade. It’s time to stop pretending that the two sides are equally culpable. One side has in the recent years been the larger part of the problem. It hasn’t always been true and it certainly won’t be in the future, but right now, today, it is.
I don’t disagree with much of what you say, David, but I think the rot in our society — in our democracy — goes so much deeper than any one faction or party. After all, if, as you say, the Right “overwhelmingly ignores facts in favor of ideology,” then why haven’t they been completely discredited in the eyes of public, such that they no longer wield any power or realistic prospect of power? Liberal commenters will point out that they lost in 2006 and 2008, but how did they react to those losses? By doubling down on the deceit and deception and rigid reliance on naked ideology and culture-war memes at the expense (sometimes/often) of objective truth — and now they stand to regain significant power in 2010. Conservative commenters, meanwhile, will say the answer is that your premise is wrong… but I don’t think it is (although I do think you’re downplaying the culpability of the Left a bit too much*). Instead, I think the answer is that fundamental forces in society — economic forces, sociological forces, technological forces, all different types of forces — are moving us in a direction where it is increasingly easy to get away with overwhelmingly ignoring facts in favor of ideology, and come to power in spite of — or, terrifyingly, because of — the fact that you are doing so. In this sense, the Right isn’t evil, they’re just ahead of the curve. In which case the political “solution” is for the Left to try and beat the Right at its own game. Which is already beginning to happen, and will probably accelerate, and will leave our society even worse off than it already is.
What makes me almost hopeless is that I don’t see any rational reason for the Right would change its ways, nor for the Left to do anything but increasingly adopt those ways, given how f***ing effective they are. The public has seemingly lost the ability to discern the difference between facts and propaganda, between truth and lies, between real solutions and fairy tales. Or maybe the public at large never had that ability, but in ages long past, the fact that only the “educated elites” really had electoral power prevented the general public’s faults from mattering, and in the more recent past, the unwashed masses sort of trusted our elite cultural masters to make these decisions for us… but now the cultural empowerment of the “common man” has ruined that balance, and left us to the rule of the Lowest Common Denominator, the successful manipulation of which is now nearing perfection after decades of experimentation by the masters of advertising and propaganda, political and otherwise. This isn’t just politics I’m talking about: the ability of Jenny McCarthy to drive public discussion on complex scientific topics, the ascendancy of reality TV at the expense of real entertainment with redeeming social value, the success of massive corporate conglomerates in convincing us that valueless processed crap is “food” … all of these things are intimately related. In the end, mine is a highly elitist position, because it’s basically an attack on human nature, and the ease with which human reaction can be controlled through clever, technologically and psychologically sophisticated manipulation. It’s too easy to blame Republicans, or the media, or whomever your preferred culprit is. At the end of the day, we are the problem. We, The People have made this mess. And only We, The People can get ourselves out of it. Except, actually, I’m not sure we can.
Maybe the Mayan calendar was right**, and 2012 is the end of the world, but only in the sense that it’s the end of humanity’s heretofore virtually unstoppable march toward progress. Maybe 2012 is when we start inexorably regressing as a society and a species, because of these many factors that I’m hinting at, though I’m not nearly insightful enough to really summarize them properly (like I said, I truly believe there’s an award-winning Ph.D. thesis in this, but I’m not smart enough to write it). The beginning of humanity’s regression would qualify as an Apocalypse of sorts.
*Generally, whichever “side” has been in opposition lately, seems to behave incredibly irresponsibility. The actual process of wielding power seems to temper the worst excesses somewhat. I do think the Right, and especially right-wing media, is worse, but not as much worse as you think. And again, I suspect future opposition Lefts will get worse and worse. We’re in a downward spiral, here.
**Yes, I know the Mayan calendar doesn’t actually say the world ends in 2012.
Good summation. I agree pretty much top to bottom.
David K – so you have attended many of the Tea Party events to be able to have such intimate knowledge of them, have you ?
Or are you again perpetuating the behaviour you project onto others ?
My own scepticism about the whole Cult of AGW is based upon the tiny percentage of greenhouse gases that CO2 represents … when we add to that the *fact* that this planet, from a point of view of plant and animal life, has *thrived* during periods of significantly higher CO2 levels (in the 2000 to 4000 range, especially for plant life), without turning irrevocably into a drifting dead cinder planet, as well as the blatantly non-scientific way (“The science is settled”) that the AGW proponents dealt with questions, that was and is significantly more than enough to convince me that AGW is a Cult, for prophet for some, for profit for others … (in good and honest science, one corrects typos by rearranging the letters in the correct order per the rules of the language – one doesn’t throw in “fudge factor” to “hide the decline”) … and, more significantly, not only does one not prevent others seeing the data, one actively makes the data available so that others can confirm or refute the studies and hypotheses …
How about a more scientific approach to Global Warming as can be seen here ?
Money grafs :-
All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
So – how’s that Global Warming doing for you, David K ?
My own take on this is that, yes, things are less than civil – and will probably continue to be so until after November … then, just as the UK Union excesses led to the correction during Thatcher (which progress it took Blair/Brown over a decade to undo), just as the 1994 election corrected over 40 years of growing one-party arrogance, I expect to see a significant course change in policy and laws, federally … and the worst of the excesses of arrogance of the past 2+ years legislatively …
While I try not to be a dictator of the comment section, I really hope this won’t now devolve into a pointless back-and-forth over Alasdair’s microcosmic points in response to David’s stray comment about AGW. That’s not what this post is about, and I actually think it’s one of the more important blog posts I’ve written (although y’all are obviously free to disagree, and tell me why). And it’s not a post about Right or Left, although it touches on ideology and politics, certainly. But that’s not what it’s about. We’ve had so many debates, among the same cast of characters with their predictable views, that inevitably break down along ideological lines, about AGW and other political micro-issues, that go nowhere. This topic is just so much vastly broader — and, I think, more interesting — than that. And it’s also about so much more than “things [being] less than civil” due to momentary changes in the political climate (the only relevant thing in Alasdair’s comment). Alasdair, while I welcome a convincing counterargument, I fear that you are fiddling while Rome burns, missing the forest for the trees with your focus on “the excesses of arrogance of the past 2+ years legislatively.” David, at least as to the micro-distractions, please don’t feed the
trollfiddler!This is a great topic.
I am in agreement with your premise, Brendan. Look at our political system. It has been corrupt for years. The only way to be heard is to have money. Any and all solutions that come out of Washington never challenge those they are meant to regulate. I often wonder if we aren’t on the cusp of a dark age of some sort, although I’m not sure what would bring that on. Both major political parties aren’t interested in solving the problems, because they both benefit from the status quo! They just shout at each other, but don’t do anything meaningful.
History tends to march to pinnacles of civilization, and then falls into dark ages. Again, can’t help but wonder if one is coming.
You know, you might be interested in the shows done by Dan Carlin, who has a pretty good handle on the problem. Just Google his name, and subscribe to both of his podcasts. His history show is more cheerful then his current affairs show, even when discussing gloomy topics.
Great point, Brandon, and it points out a supreme irony. If my theory about why all this has happened is correct, the cultural empowerment of the “common man” has led to… the effective political disenfranchisement of said “common man,” to the benefit of large monied interests whose goals are sometimes/often at odds with the common good. Whereas, before the (easily manipulated) unwashed masses had as much power as they do now, the “cultural elites” who were sort of implicitly trusted to run the show, arguably had some semblance of the common good in mind, usually. You can make that case that, in some very big-picture sense, we’ve replaced a fairly benevolent oligarchical quasi-democracy with a more direct democracy whose outcomes are so easily manipulated by non-benevolent elites that, although facially fairer and more just and representative, it’s actually worse for society.
Obviously this argument can be taken too far — I’m certainly not suggesting, for instance, that we were better off when only white property-owning males had the franchise, such that women and minorities were explicitly second-class citizens (indeed, some minorities were slaves, if you go back far enough). Nor, in another direction, am I intending to veer toward Marxist “false consciousness.” I’m just saying… we’ve got issues, maaan.
Brendan – I am much more accurately compare to Cassandra than to Nero … (our current President is much closer to Nero than I would have believed possible – even his apologists are getting embarrassed) …
Objectively, try comparing Tea Party rallies and anti-Arizona-Immigration-Law rallies …
Which one has resulted in significantly more injuries ?
Which one has resulted in significantly more violent behaviour ?
Which one has resulted in more arrests for criminal behaviour ?
OK – once you have answered that – which side does the MSM portray as the more violent one, the more threatening one ?
To use David K’s analogy, the Tea Party folk are the dripping tap and the anti-Arizona-Immigration-Law folk are the burst pipe, civility and civil-discourse-wise …
The Tea Party folk keep bringing us back to the *fact* of Congressional arrogance … they keep bringing us back to the *fact* of an economy in dire straits …
If you prefer to take David K’s analogy to the federal budget, the GOP budget deficits (years 2-6 of Bush II) were a dripping tap … the Dem budget deficits (years 7-8 of Bush II and year 1 of Obama) are the burst pipe which started out as a comparatively small leak and is turning out to be a break in the city main gradually creating an undermining sinkhole (in our economy) … and Congressional (and Presidential) arrogance seems determined to widen the budgetary hemorrhaging …
Congress had the opportunity to apply the proverbial tourniquet with Obama’s election … instead, they and Obama have chosen to introduce anticoagulants (Yes, we have segued into a blood flow rather than water-flow analogy) …
Our budget deficits are facts – and they are being ignored by Left-wing ideology, not by Right-wing ideology …
Or we can go to the trivial with comparisons of Bush II golfing (dripping tap) vs Obama’s golfing (broken pipe) …
While one can project that someone else is “missing the forest for the trees”, at both the very local all the way up to the international, the Bush/Right-wing faults problems pale by comparison with the Obama/Left-wing faults/problems …
You fear that “We’re in a downward spiral, here.” … I am reasonably confident that we will soon bottom out, and rebound, as happened after 1994’s election, as happened after the UK 1979 election … and, as with both of those, the civility will again return to the discourse as well as rationality to the budget …
The Mayan 2012 is merely the end of an arithmetically-significant calendar system … belief systems and ideologies may try to tell us otherwise, but we are not required to succumb to their ‘doom and gloom’ … we can choose to use knowledge of facts and especially historical facts to counter the ‘doom and gloom’ hypotheses …
Don’t worry Brendan, i have no intention of responding to Alasdair, its a waste of time.
As to your response, i see what you are getting at, the willingness of people to be ignorant, and, well it sort of underlies the whole reason we are a Democratic Republic and not a straight democracy. The mob can be incredibly stupid and “majority” isn’t always right (kinda like the customer).
How do we fix it? I don’t know, people can be pretty damn lazy and blindly following whatever someone tells them to can be pretty tempting, especially when you are focusing on trying to keep your family fed.
One thign I’d like to see is the Democrats grow a backbone and start calling the GOP on some of the bullshit it puts out there, especially in the media like Rush or Glenn Beck. I’d like to think that all things being equal rational facts will win out over rhetoric, but all things aren’t equal when you aren’t willing to call out the other guys rhetoric.
Perhaps our country has simply gotten too complacement and some sort of big f*ing problem needs to happen to wake people up to the severity of whats going on. I’d like to avoid that level of suffering which is why i’m generally in favor of things like not letting the economy collapose or switching to alternative fuels BEFORE we run out of oil, but who knows, maybe we as a species are just too damn stupid to get it otherwise. Good lord I hope not.
Here’s a fun thought (and by fun, I mean not at all fun). What if our political elite class has broken down, like the ruling class did in ancient Rome toward the end of the Republic? And is that class interested in the short term (elections, power and money for them) instead of the long term? I’d answer that right now, the answer is yes.
I hate drawing 1-to-1 comparisons to Rome. Because it is way to easy to say that we are in the Late Republic, and will soon see despotic emperors rule America. But you can look back, and see what type of period we’re in, and how that tended to affect things. And a move toward a more authoritarian executive branch seems to be in the offing.
The question of whether we’re better off having a quasi-oligarchy of elites with some vague sense of the common good running the country has gripped me for a long time. Some instinctual element in me resists the idea that the people don’t know what’s best for them or that they are incapable of understanding complex political issues. It rubs me the wrong way and my gut tells me to side with the people more often than not.
But when you see the tendency of the common man to despise the elite, the educated, the talented simply because he cannot identify with them, alarms go off for me. An undercurrent to so much of what is going on now is a belief that the elites – politically, academically, intellectually, etc. – are somehow inherently bad. You see this reflected in vague anti-government tea partiers and with average Americans voting for the guy they’d rather have a beer with.
I, too, fear for my country. We all do, for different reasons – but maybe that’s why it may yet avoid that event horizon. I keep thinking we’ll eventually get it together, but I worry that it may take a Watchmen-style disaster, a war, or some grave tragedy, as David K. alludes to, for everyone to pull together again. As it is, it won’t happen anytime soon.
I had the intention of responding to Alasdair, but out of respect for Brendan I won’t. I’m pretty annoyed though, because I think his two posts in this thread so far exemplify precisely what Brendan is talking about. (Obviously that’s my opinion, not Brendan’s).
My side good…your side baaad.
The major problem with this country is that we damn liberals are just too nice.
As our president would say, let me be clear: I am in no way suggesting that conservative opinions aren’t welcome on this thread, or that alternative explanations for the phenomena I’m describing — or indeed, denials that those phenomena are real — may not be offered. In that sense, Alasdair’s final paragraph of his comment #6 is unobjectionable; I just disagree with it. Likewise, a good portion of his comment #10 is also on point, even though I think he’s wrong. All I’m asking is that we stay on the broad meta-topic of this post, to the extent possible, and not bicker about side-issues like whether AGW is real or whether the MSM misrepresents the Tea Parties vis a vis immigration protesters. I’d say the same about liberal pet issues. Those are fine things to debate, and if that’s where the discussion ultimately goes, I’m not going to get all blog-dictator on anyone, but for now, while things are still potentially salvageable, I am just trying to encourage everyone to stay on topic, because it’s so easy to get dragged into the weeds. If someone thinks I’m broadly apportioning blame incorrectly, go ahead and tell me that, I’m just asking that the arguments be responsive to the big picture, not focusing purely on partisan smallball (on either side).
Gahrie, is that sufficient? Can you stop being a woe-is-me, Brendan-is-oppressing-conservatives martyr now? If you something have substantive to say about the topic of the post, by all means, say it. (And if it involves things like whether AGW is real or whether MSM in unfair to the Tea Partiers, that’s fine, I’m just asking that it tie those topics into some broader argument, not just make the point as a microcosmic rebuttal to some side-point that someone else made.)
P.S. And if you still doubt that I welcome conservative input, I just posted a link to this thread over on Alan Sullivan’s blog. If Alan himself, or any of his readers, were to see fit to join the discussion of this topic, their contributions would most likely be VERY right-wing in nature, and VERY different from mine. And that’s fine. Because Alan, and many of his readers, are also thoughtful, big-picture thinkers. It’s the big-picture part that I care about, not the ideology.
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OK, Brendan – try this for substantive, on-topic, big-picture … relating to civility of discourse …
Brendan in post “When you say “Obama policy divides,” what you mean is, “I disagree with Obama policy.” “ … for accuracy, that should have read “When you say “Obama policy divides,” what you mean is, “Obama as The Great Uniter doesn’t; his policies, so far, are designed to divide.” “ …
What you translated Melissa’s tweet to say was what you read and wanted to understand, but it’s not what the english language she used means, nor does it fit with the rest of how she expressed herself …
(If I am not expressing what Melissa intended, I both apologise and I welcome *her* correction(s) of my understanding of her words) …
Alasdair, that’s not big picture at all — it’s total minutiae, and I’m not going to let it distract me. You’ve completely, and I think fairly obviously, misconstrued my words, but I’m going to follow my own advice and not get dragged into a side-debate on the details of that point, which profoundly does not matter. I mean, really, your idea of a “big picture” comment, on this post about the alleged ills of society and humanity, is to say that I was unfair in my word choice with Melissa in a particular tweet? Really?!?
Moreover, you keep saying this is about “civility of discourse,” but it’s not. As I wrote to Melissa:
You don’t have to agree with that, but you’re not even responding to it if all you’ll talk about is issues of tone, without explaining why you think I’m wrong that this is a matter of substance, not tone.
On another note, I’ve added another update to the post. I mention this in case anyone is following this thread via an RSS feed or whatever. Go back and re-read the post; it’s got new material! John Derbyshire is quoted and linked! (AMLTrojan-bait!)
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Brendan #18 – at the big-picture part of the topic ““America is at something closer to an event-horizon than a cross-roads”” – I see America (and the West – UK & Europe especially) as being more in a situation of being on the proverbial dimpled rubber sheet model of
gravitational fields … and the dimpled rubber sheet is sloped, going from a low side of impoverishment and ignorance up towards prosperity and wisdom/understanding …
Over the past few centuries, the West has been gradually moving across (and mostly moving upwards while it does so) this sloped dimpled rubber sheet … every so often, we ‘lose energy’ and start to spiral down and into one of the dimples, and yet, somehow, something comes along and re-infuses us with energy and purpose and we spiral right back out and up again, and we continue again on our path gradually up-slope …
At the moment, some of the challenges seem insurmountable, and yet, when we compare Life now to what it was back even 50 or 100 years, we are actually doing remarkably well … and, when we enter a downward spiral, we seem to consistently manage to spiral back up and out again, even before we can get deep enough into the ‘down-well’ to be where we were 50 or 100 years ago …
Politically, at the moment, we have leaders who believe that no groups should be allowed to enjoy using more ‘up-energy’ than others, who believe that prosperity is a zero-sum game … those leaders have been slowing down the driving part, the energetic part of our economy, by increased ‘transfers of wealth’ from those who create it and move it around to those who don’t choose (for reasons sometimes valid, sometimes not) to enjoy using the ‘up-energy’ …
(This also isn’t a left-right Dem vs GOP thing directly – JFK (D) understood that the economy isn’t a zero-sum game, as did Reagan (R), as did Bush II (R); Hoover (R) didn’t understand that, nor did Carter (D), nor does Obama (D))
The past few years have shocked a lot of folk out of their complacency to where ordinary folk are becoming activists to get us out of our current spiral into the ‘down-well’ … they are joining Tea Party movements, they are becoming better-informed of their own volition, and they are starting out from a basic mistrust of professional politicians of pretty much *any* party …
As they do so, by direct result, they are leaving behind the ideologues of whatever stripe … and yet they are not chasing former friends away – friends are welcome to join them; they can even bring their ideology along, it’s just not respected any more … and that leaves the fanatics getting more and more indignant and shrill …
Where they do speak out, it is to express that they understand how earmarks have corrupted and continue to corrupt the political process … they don’t respect the New Louisiana Purchase, nor the Corn-husker Kickback … they know enough history of where they live to know that none of the counties in which they live were ever part of Greater Tenochtitlan and they don’t want to join there now …
For the vast majority of ’em, they are there because they choose to be there as individuals, as couples, as a voluntary association of people … the only race they care about passionately is the human race, not the arbitrary ‘racial groups’ so favoured by National Socialist Germany or the Ku Klux Klan or the founder of Planned Parenthood, not the myriad ‘minority groups’ … they have pride in their heritage, *and* they manage to do so without needing to throw out pride in their country to be able to do so … and those who still cling to the divisive ‘minority groups’ amd ‘racial groups’ as their only identity self-select and stay away from the Tea Party gatherings – even though it doesn’t seem to prevent them doing their best to put down the Tea Party folk …
In a prior millennium, energy like that of the Tea Partyy folk got the US to land men on the Moon … and a lot of folk found American exceptionalism *really* annoying, because the pride was well-earned (“Dammit !”) …
In the past 50 years, our human race has managed to wipe out the scourge of small-pox … we have managed to contain what was turning into an unstoppable pandemic of HIV/AIDS to where, with good meds, it becomes a serious yet chronic illness, more like diabetes in severity, no longer the poor relative of Ebola … as each country’s prosperity increases, the average longevity of its citizens increases, with high correlation … for a presentation that is both informative and entertaining, see Hans Rosling …
Anyway, this is long enough, and tomorrow, Thursday, the last of my 4 daughters graduates from an excellent high school in Los Angeles …
I look forward to hearing/reading how *this* doesn’t fit with what you intended, either … (grin) … it is a much easier response than addressing any of my points, isn’t it ?
Just another reason I refuse to have children. I wouldn’t want to stick anyone with the world we’ve got, and the last thing it needs is more humanity to f it up. It could be said that humans can fix this too – but we’ve created a culture where people for the most part will do nothing for anyone’s good unless it in involves some significant personal gain. And for Americans, at least – and I would guess in many other countries, too, since we were once looked to – personal gain doesn’t include the saving of a society or its world.
Alasdair, that was excellent! I mean, I don’t agree with it, naturally, on various points, but it’s precisely the sort of big-picture conservative response that I was trying to elicit. Thanks!
Unfortunately, the reason I’m awake at 4:13 AM is because I have some non-blog-related things that I need to get done, so I can’t respond to its substance just now, but I trust that others can pick up the ball there. I’m just glad we’re still on topic. 🙂
In other news, here is Melissa’s take on our conversation. Good stuff.
Again for the benefit of anyone following comments via RSS or whatever: I added another update. So, go back and re-read the post. 🙂 Actually, I added an “UPDATE 3,” a “P.P.P.S,” and a bracketed “NOTE” embedded in the original post’s body, prior to the quoted Twitter conversation, retroactively addressing the concern that I’m being too Left-leaning here. I wrote:
it’s precisely the sort of big-picture conservative response that I was trying to elicit.
I honestly see it as more of the same tripe you pointed out in your original post. Some examples:
Politically, at the moment, we have leaders who believe that no groups should be allowed to enjoy using more ‘up-energy’ than others, who believe that prosperity is a zero-sum game …
Look, the rest of the same paragraph may be a valid concern of a conservative, but this kind of stuff is simply demonstrably untrue, and unhelpful. Liberals in America do not see prosperity as a “zero-sum game.” Taxes are *remarkably* lower for the highest earners than they were 50 years ago.
This kind of rhetoric is precisely the problem, in my opinion. If to someone like Alasdair things are as bad as he describes there can be no compromise, ever.
In a prior millennium, energy like that of the Tea Partyy folk got the US to land men on the Moon … and a lot of folk found American exceptionalism *really* annoying, because the pride was well-earned (“Dammit !”) …
This comment sums up my criticism of the previous paragraphs. I think my concern is best put like this: if by “energy” you mean “passion for a cause” then yes. But if so, what does that have to do with the Tea Partiers? There are plenty of movements in US history that have had a lot of “energy” that have been profoundly bad for the country. Your whimsical review of how tea partiers are excited ignores the fundamental issue that actually matters: are they right about anything?
Or heck, forget that, are they even making any attempt to put forth a reasonable argument. I’d argue no. Hell, I think it’s fairly established there isn’t any argument being put forth, valid or not. When you’ve got a 50/50 split between people who idolize Ron Paul and Sarah Palin, the only unifying theme is “we don’t like taxes”.
In the past 50 years, our human race has managed to wipe out the scourge of small-pox
And unfortunately there’s concern about a resurgence now, because of the kind of blind hatred of authority that tea party types (as well as some loonies on the left, I should say that most any criticism above has its mirror on the left) have espoused, people are refusing vaccines.
Let me be clear (again, heh). My praise of Alasdair was limited to the fact that he was, in his own way and from his own (in my view deeply flawed) perspective, at least attempting to address the broader themes of this post, rather than limiting himself to purely small-ball sub-issues and side questions like, say, my word choices in a specific tweet (!). I agree with you that his take is wrong, and in fact demonstrates some of the very problems that I think are symptomatic of the broader problems in our society. But my diagnosis of society’s problems is not Gospel, and I want commenters to feel free to offer their own take, even if their take happens to be something that I think is not just empirically and normatively wrong, but actually symptomatic of what my diagnosis says is the disease! The only thing I was trying to discourage was comments that divert us into a side-dialogue that isn’t even responsive to the original post. At this point, the only one doing that “diversion” is, uh, me, so I’m going to shut up now. Talk amongst yourselves, commenters, I’ll give you a topic… oh wait, I already did! 🙂 But talk about it as you see fit. This is another reminder that I really shouldn’t try to referee the comment section, as opposed to simply participating in it (or else just letting it run its course). When I try to referee, my intentions are always misunderstood. 🙂
What I find interesting is that a big picture, or “macroscopic” debate tends to devolve itself into it’s own special kind of strange. Where the “in a perfect world” view of each side is subjected to the bludgeon of the opposing sides pragmatism.
It’s what happened in David’s debate a few days ago, and why I ignored the discussion. But simply in a perfect world laws against discrimination would be superfluous. In a perfect world the free market would take care of the situation in the gulf. etc. This was beaten about the kidneys by the pragmatic reality that we don’t live in a perfect world and things simply will not work that way, much as we might want them to. And of course whichever viewpoint you’ve selected to argue from the other side simply seems daft.
Honestly, it’s not even that the two sides are engaging with different facts, or can’t agree on the facts, the two sides are playing completely different games.
The same seems to be happening here too. But the simplest way to break this down, to understand it is to realize this is a fight this country has been having since before its very inception.
Factions. more specifically: in a perfect world there would be no factions. Factions are horrible destructive things, most of the problems discussed in this post can be traced directly to factions. But pragmatically, our government would completely cease to function without them.
What does this mean? I don’t know. But I don’t think it is the end of the world. Or a event horizon. If it is, this country has forever been on the precipice. Any student of history would be capable of telling you this. We’ve forever been on the edge, we’ve yet to fall in.
We’ve forever been on the edge, we’ve yet to fall in.
Perhaps so. This is what I meant by “the generic belief that crises are usually overstated in pessimists’ minds. Grumpy Old Men are usually wrong. Doom is always imminent, The End is always nigh, and yet somehow we muddle through, and in the end, actually thrive.” In my heart of hearts, I’m actually an optimist, so this line of reasoning is pretty compelling to me. At the same time, though, I tend to think that things have gotten bad enough, in a variety of ways, that I’m unable to dissuade myself of the logic supporting the far more pessimistic view. If it was just a matter of factionalism leading to dishonest discourse, that wouldn’t be an event horizon. But when I look around at all the massive real-life problems and crises that I think the dishonest discourse and fairy-tale thinking has helped create and/or is preventing us from solving, that’s when I start to get hopeless. But you may very well be right, and I’m just another generational doomsayer, trapped by his own logic into believing that Grumpy Old Man-ism is, this time, unlike all the other times, actually justified.
I certainly hope you’re right.
P.S. Per @corcoran310, an alternative title for this post: Brendan’s Grand Unified Theory of PANIC!!!!!! Hahaha. Brilliant.
Brendan, you have just described the fatal flaw of democracy. This fatal flaw has existed since the Athenians came up with the idea. Democracies are horrible at dealing with a crisis. More specifically, they will ignore a problem until it becomes a crisis. Then, and only then, will action be taken. When it acts it doesn’t act particularly efficiently and not necessarily effectively either. Democracies fail when the crisis becomes so severe that people are willing to abide a dictator to solve the problem. The democracy then collapses because the dictator, obviously, is not going to give up power willingly. The dictatorship eventually fails when the rich get fed up with the dictator and take over to form an oligarchy. The oligarchy then fails when the hoi polloi get fed up with the oligarchy. And thus we begin again.
For those scoring at home, democracy in the US has outlived any historical democracy that we know about. Or perhaps not, depending on how you score things. Arguably we were an oligarchy until suffrage stopped being means tested. What’s funny about this is that conservatives were the one’s that feared universal suffrage and the whims of the masses. And now the conservatives are the ones to take most cynical and ruthless advantage of the fickle masses.
Dane, don’t forget the Romans! They had something democratic going for a few hundred years. Again, depends on how you score it. And the UK has had a form of democracy for a while as well.
One of the things the Romans had was a way to appoint a dictator to deal with a crisis without having him stay on, and democracy restored at the end of the crisis. They even had a stigma attached to staying on longer then your term. This eventually broke down. But it was an abuse of the position and the trust given to the dictator, not necessarily a condemnation of the position itself. But I don’t see that type of position being able to be created now. You have to put it in at the beginning, and have the cultural stigma against staying on, and I think it is too late for that here.
Jim Kelly #30 – “In the past 50 years, our human race has managed to wipe out the scourge of small-pox
And unfortunately there’s concern about a resurgence now, because of the kind of blind hatred of authority that tea party types (as well as some loonies on the left, I should say that most any criticism above has its mirror on the left) have espoused, people are refusing vaccines.”
You gave a great example of why blind prejudices are a problem, even more so in this day and age of continuously-improving access to information and sources of corroboration …
Last time I looked, there is NO concern about any “resurgence” of smallpox – mostly due to fact that smallpox has been eradicated for over 3 decades … in parrotty parody terms, paraphrasing – “Smallpox is *still* dead !” … “The last naturally acquired case of smallpox occurred in 1977. The last cases of smallpox, from laboratory exposure, occurred in 1978. In the United States, routine vaccination against smallpox ended in 1972.” …
I would be really curious to find out on what facts you base your assertion that “because of the kind of blind hatred of authority that tea party types (as well as some loonies on the left, I should say that most any criticism above has its mirror on the left) have espoused, people are refusing vaccines” … and especially the “blind hatred of authority that tea party types … have espoused” part …
The Tea Party types that *I* know don’t have a “blind hatred of authority” – instead, they have a well-informed distrust (and dislike) of our current Federal authorities and of politicians as a general group … and it’s not a “blind” prejudice; it’s a strongly-held opinion reinforced over time, time and time again in the past couple of years, as to teh arrogance of our current federal authorities …
I would also be curious to see any studies that have been done of Tea Party type folk – I would predict that a significant portion of them, and I would expect it to be the majority of them. will show as having a ‘natural’ built-in immunity to things like the Cult of AGW, or the belief long-encouraged by the MSM that vaccines cause autism (breaking news for AGW believers – vaccines don’t cause autism), or the currently-peddled belief system that holds that current federal policies and legislation will bring us out of the current recdession (take a look at how the US GDP progressed between the 1920s and the 1940s) …
dcl #35 does raise an interesting point (although I don’t think he realised he is supporting my “own (in
myBrendan’s view deeply flawed) perspective” … the “hoi polloi” (the Tea Party Folk) are indeed fed up with the ‘hoi totoi’ (current federal politicians and officials) – and they are working to get rid of them to replace them with honest folk … (ask Respected Elder Loy what “hoity-toity” means – cuz it fits Kerry and Obama to the proverbial T) … where dcl makes his mistake is that the US Representative Republic is not a “pure” democracy – and it semi-regularly survives a transition of power from one group to another, from one faction to another, each 2 years or 4 years or Summer-or-Winter Olympiad or whichever semi-regular interval happens to be occurring at the time of transition …(grin) Some folk would dispute dcl’s assertion that the US democracy is the longest lasting, so far … some would assert that the UK Representative Monarchy (as contrasted with the US Representative Republic) is longer lasting (at least so far – God Save The Queen, Long May Her Majesty Reign ! (at least until Charles is too old for the job (or has shuffled off HRH’s mortal coil) so that Prince William becomes first-heir-in-line) (cuz Prince Charles, the current Crown Prince and first-in-line after Her Majesty seems more from the mould of the current less-and-less respected Obama/Kerry types)) … (parenthetically speaking) …
A few quick thoughts.
“Dishonest discourse, polarization, propaganda, endless debt, personal and government irresponsibility, bad governance: all are related.” How, exactly? I mean, this might seem nitpicky, but what are the real linkages here? If you don’t establish these linkages, you have a conjecture but not an argument. For example, what’s the exact connection between dishonest discourse and endless debt? There are good honest arguments from both sides of the aisle about when deficits should be run and how big they should be. How can you show that debt policy came from dishonest discourse?
Granted, cable news is thoroughly retarded. And much public discourse gets pretty retarded because of this. But how much policy has really been shaped by this discourse? At the end of the day, governance is the task of elites. And elites have access to better discourse. Trust me, Obama isn’t taking his cues from CNN.
There is certainly a theoretical link between broken discourse and broken governance. But for such a link to be both operative and increasing over time, policies have to be shaped by this broken discourse, and this trend has to be snowballing.
(FYI, check out the book “The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion” by John Zaller. It contains fully fleshed out, empirically confirmed arguments about how political opinions are formed by elite cue taking. I could maybe lend it to you some time.)
It’s all well and good to be depressed and cynical over the ways of the world. But for those sentiments to have substance, they have to depend on negatively cascading structural linkages that you understand, rather than just impressions and characterizations of the broad swath of public discourse. Otherwise you’re one of those poetic artsy types who smoke cloves and wear berets and read Camus in Starbuckses. You don’t want that, do you Brendan? 🙂
Well, I do live pretty close to Boulder, so maybe it’s my destiny. 🙂
You make a lot of good points, Casey. I don’t have time to address them fully now. Maybe some of the commenters who provisionally agree with me do? But let me just say that, in general, I agree that I’m making very broad, impression-based characterizations, not supported by empirical evidence. That’s why I keep saying I think this is the potential topic for an interdisciplinary Ph.D. thesis by someone far smarter than me (and, I should add, with roughly infinite time to do the necessary research). Of course, said topic would undoubtedly be laughed out of the thesis committee room (do thesis committees have rooms?) based on its ridiculous overbreadth. “I want to do a paper about how everything sucks, and why.” Still, the point is, I acknowledge that, in the final analysis, I’m not saying much more than, “I think there’s something to this, but I don’t have the capacity to demonstrate it, but I still think I’m right. Now let me spend several hours writing flowery prose about this theoretical construct that is probably wrong.”
That’s not a very good defense, and if I had more time right now, I’d make some effort to say why I think there is actually “a link between broken discourse and broken governance.” But even if I did that, I’d still only be positing something I think, not something I can prove. And even as “something I think,” I’m still not that confident in it. Hence my constant reversion to the “but Grumpy Old Men are usually wrong” theme.
This entire comment is a tangent. But…
B. The position of Roman Dictator is oft misunderstood. The only person to actually be given complete unilateral power and no specific time constraint was named Julius Caesar, Dictator perpetuo. Subsequently Augustus was simply named Caesar. Other cases of the dictators being appointed tend to be exceptionally specific.
From the throwing off of the kings in in 509 B.C.E. (By L. Junius Brutus, ancestor of M. Junius Brutus, killer of G. Julius Caesar) the politics of the Republic are rather fascinating but also tend to confuse the heck out of people. The government was an oligarchy. This didn’t begin to change until around 367 B.C.E.And true power isn’t exercised by the plebs until 133 B.C.E. (what we could begin to identify as a true democratic government) with the Gracchi. The Republic basically collapses by 49 B.C.E. The empire doesn’t really begin until 27 B.C.E. and the end of the civil wars that followed the death of Caesar. Rome as a democracy actually lasted less than 100 years. Athenian Democracy lasted just shy of 200.
As for the case of Britain. Keep in mind that the Kind, or Queen, though constrained by Magna Carta starting in 1215 continued to wield real political power long after the formation of the United States some time in the early 20th century. The house of Commons (democracy) didn’t exist until 1801. Before then it was the rich, the oligarchy, attempting to control the king from wanton exercise of power. The house of Lords also didn’t begin to loose power until the 20th century. The house of Commons controlling the politics of Great Britain in the manner and to the extent they do today is quite a recent phenomenon.
The US is the oldest extant democracy. And has existed as such longer than both Athens and Rome did. The two longest running democracies that pre-date the United States.
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This post illuminates very little except that Brendan finds it impossible to get into a tweet-war and keep his responses to less than 140 characters. If he afforded his counter-pundits the opportunity to rewrite and expand their tweets to match, then I’d probably take the conversation more seriously.
Beyond that, here’s my take on what the disconnect is. By moving forward into the post-industrialist, information age, we have permanently changed the nature of representative democracy, and the citizenry is both vastly more informed and misinformed than ever before. Concurrent with this, decision-making and power has never ceased to flow away from individuals and communities, and towards state and federal governments. That is the crux of the problem and the crucible for civic rot. We can’t undo being in the Information Age, therefore the only solution is to halt the expansion of government and devolve power and responsibility back to citizens and communities as much as possible. With every government program, every budgetary decision, every rule and regulation, politicians need to ask, Does this move the nexus of control further away from, or closer to, the people paying for and the people affected by our actions?
The ideological and political implications of what I am saying are, of course, obvious, and, of course, anathema to liberals. But to me, this is about as no-duh as it gets. Just as businesses are finding they need to flatten their organizations and push informed decision-making down to the lowest levels, so our government needs to follow suit. But as long as we are straight-jacketed by the liberal progressive agenda of equality of outcomes above all else, we are forced to go the wrong direction, against nature, against the predictable effects of ever increasing information availability, and against history.
Bottom line, though, is that it’s not about conservative outcomes vs. liberal outcomes (e.g. pro-choice abortion policy vs. pro-life abortion policy; higher taxes, regulations, and government spending vs. lower taxes, regulations, and government spending; etc.), it’s about where those policy outcomes are decided. The closer the decision-makers are to the people, the less polarization and paralysis you will have, and the more effective the policy outcomes will be.
AML, you say that right up until the point where the local wants to do something you don’t like and the state doesn’t want to let them. Then you switch sides. Because liberals and conservatives both care more about winning and outcomes.
E.G. at the federal level Abortion is okay. At the state level, they keep trying to come up with creative ways to outlaw it. What if they were successful and a community within that state wanted to allow it. Are you honestly saying that’s cool. Or even that that kind of paradigm would work? HOA’s run amuck just as much as the Federal Government. They just have a smaller tea pot to work in.
Last time I looked, there is NO concern about any “resurgence” of smallpox
Oops, in my haste I misspoke, I meant to say concern about resurgence of measles, which in recent years, despite being effecitvely beaten in North America, has found a new foothold in communities that refuse to vaccinate their kids. This sort of unproductive, refuse to listen to reason type mentality is precisely the same that I think is being outlined above and in this case it’s dangerous.
So far from patting ourselves (or, I’m sorry, patting tea partiers?!) on the back for eliminating disease, I think we should be concerned.
And it’s nice that the tea partiers you know are informed, but the plural of “the tea partiers you know” isn’t data, unfortunately. What the initial data does show, however, is that tea partiers are both ideologically split (see my Paul vs. Palin point above) and where they do seemingly agree taxes (although it’s a warped sort of agreement, one side wants it for libertarian values, the other more because they feel businesses and rich individuals shouldn’t bear the brunt of societies costs), they don’t know a thing about it. I believe the article went through here about how vastly undereducated tea party protestors are about what tax rates actually are.
Finally, there’s no “cult” of global warming, other than the sense that there’s a body of people on the left who don’t understand the science and yet are concerned anyway. There’s a body on the right who don’t understand the science and yet are unconcerned anyway. If that’s what you are referring to, then there’s a cult for friggin’ everything. Foreign policy, education, drug laws, immigration. The average person understands not a friggin’ thing about any of these issues, yet they all still have opinions.
Related, since we’ve gotten back on that again, I’m going to take a potshot at your ridiculous global warming claims above. First off, you go through link hell trying to follow the links to find backing for the claims they make. After the third or fourth link that led back to their own site, I gave up. Find me the actual report from those bodies that says that, or piss off.
Second, here’s what NOAA has to say:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100517_globalstats.html
“The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for both April and for the period from January-April, according to NOAA. Additionally, last month’s average ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for any April, and the global land surface temperature was the third warmest on record.”
You know, a little skepticism I’m okay with, and a desire that we don’t do anything rash is fine too. But I’m not sure I get the desire to outright misrepresent the facts.
Feel free to click back to March too. Oh, and February. Oh, January will work too. They’re all either the warmest or just a few off for the warmest on record.
If he afforded his counter-pundits the opportunity to rewrite and expand their tweets to match, then I’d probably take the conversation more seriously.
Huh? I don’t understand what this means. I don’t need to “afford” Melissa Clouthier anything; she’s a more prominent commentator than me, and she’s got her own blog, and she did post her own take on our conversation, and I linked to it! And, if she desires, she’s welcome to comment here, obviously. Indeed, I would have included her thoughts/corrections/additions directly in the post itself, if she’d felt that I had said something inaccurate. In fact, I tweeted at her virtually the instant I published this post, asking her to read it and please let me know if she had any problems with the way I temporally reorganized our conversation; she didn’t raise any objections, and in her post, she said, “I suggest that you go read [Brendan’s] whole post. He pretty fairly encapsulates the bulk of our intense Twitter back and forth argument.” Also, I didn’t “rewrite and expand” my tweets. I simply re-organized the tweet conversation temporally, to make the back-and-forth sensible to a reader, and made a bunch of minor changes like converting “&” to “and” — stuff like that, since I didn’t have to deal with 140-character limits here.
*huff huff huff* But now I’m the one letting myself get sidetracked by irrelevant smallball.
Except for that silly and inaccurate attack, I appreciate your contribution to the discussion, AML, particularly the sentence: “By moving forward into the post-industrialist, information age, we have permanently changed the nature of representative democracy, and the citizenry is both vastly more informed and misinformed than ever before.” I agree with that. Not sure I agree with your solution (which isn’t the same thing as saying I disagree with it; I’m just not sure), but it’s an intriguing take, certainly.
Regardless of whether my post “illuminates very little,” its greatest strength is definitely not its own internal insights, but rather its bringing out broader conversation about this, which was always sort of the point. Like I keep saying, I’m not the guy to write the Ph.D. thesis. I’m just the guy bringing the idea to the table.
measles…in recent years, despite being effecitvely beaten in North America, has found a new foothold in communities that refuse to vaccinate their kids. This sort of unproductive, refuse to listen to reason type mentality is precisely the same that I think is being outlined above and in this case it’s dangerous.
Not only is this the type of thing that’s being outlined above, it’s specifically referenced in one of my several updates to the post, where I wrote: “This isn’t just politics I’m talking about: the ability of Jenny McCarthy to drive public discussion on complex scientific topics, the ascendancy of reality TV at the expense of real entertainment with redeeming social value, the success of massive corporate conglomerates in convincing us that valueless processed crap is ‘food’ … all of these things are intimately related.”
Jenny McCarthy, if anyone doesn’t know, is the scentifically uncredentialed celebrity idiot whose ridiculous, totally discredited anti-vaccine crusade is almost single-handedly responsible for misleading millions of parents into honestly believing that vaccines can cause autism — something that is just categorically untrue as a matter of empirical, objective fact (this is a case where, whatever one thinks about AGW, it’s beyond reasonable dispute the science REALLY IS settled, or as “settled” as any science can ever be) — on the basis of lies and conspiracy theories and just utter bollocks and complete nonsense. She has spent years spreading demonstrable untruths that, despite their repeatedly proven and indisputable falsehood, millions of people, herself included no doubt, earnestly believe, and make significant, potentially life-or-death decisions on the basis of. And, try as some of them might, our major societal institutions — government, media, universities, you name it — are apparently powerless to stop this brainless celebrity-fueled cycle of bullshit, and get people to realize that IT. IS. NOT. TRUE.
The ultimate case in point: during the 2008 presidential campaign, BOTH Obama AND McCain, at one time or another, paid lip service to the idea that “more study is needed” on this topic — i.e., that it’s still an open question scientifically — which is just absolutely, categorically untrue, indeed I would argue EVEN MORE categorically untrue than “Barack Obama’s citizenship is an open question” or “potential U.S. government involvement in the 9/11 attacks is an open question,” or possibly even Sandy Underpants’s favorite, “whether the Moon landing was faked is an open question.” I mean, it is THAT level of crazy.
The Jenny McCarthy / autism / vaccines thing is quite literally the perfect example of what I’m talking about.
Just to throw some history into the argument……
The basic premise I believe is that lately politics in the United States has become extremely partisan, coarse, and even dangerous.
In fact things may have gotten so bad that the very existence of the republic is in danger.
1) Our system was designed to be partisan. The Founders counted on everyone acting in their own self interest. True, they did not anticipate political parties, but they expected factions. These competing self interests were designed as one of checks on democratic disorder.
2) Coarse?!? I suggest people go back and examine 18th and 19th century politics. Politicians created newspapers expressly designed to promote their politics and attack their rivals. It is the reason why most major cities had at least two competing dailies until recently. The “supposedly neutral” idea of the press and popular media is an artifact of the second half of the twentieth century, not the norm. People have been circulating nasty rumors about politician’s private lives in America since before our republic was founded. There were many duels to the death fought over such campaigns. ( Look up Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Jackson as prominent examples) Politics today is actually much more mild than before.
3) Dangerous? On a personal level?
How about getting nearly caned to death on the Senate floor? (Look up Senator Charles Sumner.) Hell, every week or so we see footage of today’s politicians in other countries physically attacking each other in the legislative body.
On a national level?
We’re not near near civil war territory.
So, looked at in a historical perspective, politics in the U.S. is not bad at all.
Now, ….
I am personally perplexed when people I respect turn out to be progressives. It simply seems incredible to me that an intelligent, rational person could really believe all that crap the leftys are saying.
And I know that the Brendans, Davids and Sandys of the world feel exactly the same about us on the right. How can they believe that crap?
Now the better-natured of those among us ascribe our differences to ignorance, and if we can only make the right argument, the Other will see the light. Others ascribe the differences as vice (greed etc) , or even evil.
Now the argument about which side is right is eternal. That question will never be answered, because man will never be perfect.
But how is it that the left and the right can co-exist in the same country, with such disgust and disdain, such inability to understand the other.
I would argue that it is the very robustness of our political system.
I would argue that it is the very robustness of our political system.
Well see, this is precisely what draws me to this topic so much.
There’s a duality to a lot of the features of our government.
I’m usually *pissed* about the two part system, but I also recognize that it serves as a moderating function, preventing us from going to far to one extreme or another (usually).
I mean, I guess it’s fair to say that your disdain of my desire for a single payer healthcare system is much my disdain of your desire to kill all the brown people in the world (I kid! I kid!). You get the point though. We’re both not getting things we want, but I such is life, I suppose, when you have to live with others.
I suppose for each of us that means that we aren’t living in the America that is as great as it *could* be, but in the aggregate, it seems still pretty damn good for both of us, right?
Well I think what Brendan is getting at (and what I’m concerned about) is what happens when this function prevents us from doing things that are necessary to save our asses? Like deal with our debt? I mean, look, I may sound like a tax and spend liberal (and I am to some degree. 🙂 ) but that’s just the point, I like to do both, or at least attempt to balance them. But look at Greece, or hell even California? Or heck, even Congress!
All these places are paralyzed but a refusal to sit down and discuss these issues with any seriousness. We *do* need to make cuts. But we do need to raise revenues as well. And until people discussing these issues are willing to have a discussion about these issues in a way that makes concessions (and the other side is willing to acknowledge these concessions) I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere.
I bolded the above not to start a partisan attack, but to point out that I think the Obama administration actually does make concessions. The recent offer to send troops to the border as well as increase funds for border patrol activities is an olive branch to the right. The same with offshore drilling. But there’s no acknowledgement from the right that these things happened. Perhaps there were similar issues under Bush and I missed them, I’m not necessarily arguing that the right is inventing the art of being dicks during the political process.
“I am personally perplexed when people I respect turn out to be progressives. It simply seems incredible to me that an intelligent, rational person could really believe all that crap the leftys are saying.”
Damn liberals and their wanting things like the right for women to vote, minorities to vote, slaves to be free…
We *do* need to make cuts. But we do need to raise revenues as well.
But Jim, haven’t you heard, cutting taxes raises revenue!! ALWAYS!! And raising taxes cuts revenue!! ALWAYS!! I know this to be so, because
JesusReagan told me so!!Although I refrained from saying it in the post, for fear of being more overtly partisan than I already was, this is one of the chief “fairy tales” I was thinking of when I used that term. It has incredible currency on the Right at the moment. It’s as if they don’t realize the mathematical paradox of their view, that surely AT SOME POINT lowering taxes (like, say, to 0%? or perhaps 0.01%? or perhaps some slightly higher number?) would, in fact, cut revenue.
I hasten to add that Keynesians could be accused of a similar “fairy tale,” if they actually believed a deficits-never-ever-matter caricature of their own views, the way supply-siders believe a taxes-always-always-reduce-revenue caricature of their views… except I’ve rarely, if ever, heard a Keynesian articulate such a ridiclous thing (though it could be argued, I guess, that some liberals’ actual behavior is consistent with such a caricature, which might be true).
If you don’t believe me that supply-siders believe a caricature of their views, believe one of the founders fo supply-side economics:
That’s from Bruce Bartlett, who, of course, is now a RINO and a far-left liberal and Keynesian scum in the eyes of the true believers, because he is no longer telling fairy tales.
*sigh*
Here’s another example of political discourse that is simply dishonest. Not “uncivil,” which everyone keeps thinking this is about. It’s not civility I’m asking for, it’s simple honesty. Yell and scream all you want, but yell and scream about things that are TRUE.
Damn liberals and their wanting things like the right for women to vote, minorities to vote, slaves to be free…
I really wish you had stayed awake in history….
Which party defended slavery?
Which party instituted Jim Crow and formed the Ku Klux Klan?
Which party locked up German- Americans in WW I and Japanese-Americans in WW II?
Which party was formed explicitly in opposition to slavery?
Which party insists on treating people as individuals with individual rights?
Which party believes on treating people as a member of an identity group with group rights?
Here’s another example of political discourse that is simply dishonest. Not “uncivil,” which everyone keeps thinking this is about. It’s not civility I’m asking for, it’s simple honesty. Yell and scream all you want, but yell and scream about things that are TRUE.
The problem Brendan, is that we have different definitions of what is “true”.
For instance, you haven’t blogged about it in a while, but I’m fairly sure you still believe that man-made climate change is “true”. I am just as convinced that man-made climate change is clearly a lie based on statistical manipulation and scientific fraud.
And as for your “example” I saw no argument about truth or lies, but instead a polemic with no evidence, not even a quote from the objectionable book. I’d bet dollars to donuts that who ever wrote that post on that blog never even read the book. So yes I believe you provided an example of what you were talking about, but not in the way you intended.
gahrie, the Republicans WERE the liberals back int hose days. Its bullshit that the GOP claims to be the party of TR and Lincoln. Lincoln who asserted federal rights over states rights, TR who was the trust buster, completely counter to all the free market arguments of todays Republican party.
Clearly YOU didn’t pay attention in history class since you have only the barest surface level understanding of history.
I specifically avoided the use of party labels in those comments because the party labels have little meaning over the past 150+ years, their positions have completely flip flopped. Not that you would let pesky things like facts get in the way of your bullshit arguments.
In fact you are demonstrating a perfect example of the intellectual dishonesty that Brendan was talking about. Either that or your understanding of politics is so limited that you think liberal and Democratic party are completely synonamous and always have been. So like I said, either you don’t care about the truth, or you are simply not intelligent enough to understand it.
Further, the type of argument you are making is akin to equating socialism with Nazi Germany or democracy with North Korea, because the official title of each used the respective word in their name, while completely ignoring whether those groups behaved in a way consistent with the ideologies you are associating them with. In your arguments labels matter more than behavior. You can change the name of something, but that doesn’t change what it is. You could start calling an orange a potato but that doesn’t mean it would suddenly start growing underground and be prepared into french fries or baked.
The left has always insisted that individuals have no rights or political identity apart from their status as a member of an identity group.
The right has always insisted on treating individuals as individuals.
The NAZIs were not socialist because of their name, they were socialist because of their beliefs and actions.
The problem Brendan, is that we have different definitions of what is “true”.
Indeed. That is most definitely the problem. Your definition appears to be “things that are false.” And as proof:
as for your “example” I saw no argument about truth or lies, but instead a polemic with no evidence, not even a quote from the objectionable book.
This may be literally true if all you read was the two-paragraph excerpt — but if you were under the impression that the two-paragraph excerpt was the entire refutation of the book, and therefore felt justified in calling it a “polemic with no evidence, not even a quote from the objectionable book,” you apparently don’t understand how hyperlinking works, or the English language for that matter. Here is the referenced post linked and blockquoted by Sullivan. It is a point-by-point refutation, with lengthy quotes, of a just-published, author-selected excerpt of the objectionable book. It conclusively proves that the book is filled with outright falsehoods.
As for global warming… I’ve deliberately avoided citing that particular third rail of political discussion in this thread. I have deliberately NOT used it as an example of my argument about dishonest discourse. I’m just not going to go there. Some liberal commenters will say that I should, and maybe they’re right, but I’m not going to. This is partly because I know it would overwhelm the topic completely, and partly because I haven’t read the various papers on it, and I’m a “weather nerd” but not really a “climate nerd,” so I don’t really feel qualified to opine definitively on the topic. Thus, by using it as an example of how our definition of “truth” differs, you’re missing the boat. At least for purposes of this discussion, it’s not a proper example. A far better example is something like the McCarthy book, which is demonstrably false — as is your claim that it hasn’t been proven demonstrably false by what I linked.
*Full disclosure: I edited this comments several times, so if you started responding mid-stream, you might have missed some stuff.
Brendan, you missed the point of my criticism, which admittedly was superficial and meant more to tweak than to make any sort of point. But allow me to better explain where I am coming from.
If you go back and look at your post, the mere length of it on its own is dissuasive: Why would I want to spend my limited time reading that long of a blog post? But OK, fine, scroll down, get into the meat — and I see a back-and-forth between two (and then three) parties, alleged to have originated on Twitter. Twitter is a format I greatly dislike for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the 140 character limit and the way it drives users to use annoying text abbreviations to stay within the limitations. So it’s nice that you cleaned up the conversation, but then you see one side in cleaned up twitspeak while still keeping near the original 140 character limit, and the other side also cleaned up twitspeak but now expanded to multi-sentence prose. The contrast is jarring, and content aside, difficult for the brain to accept as a valid expression of argumentation. IMO, you would have been better off not expanding your text, or asking the other conversaters to expand their twitspeak into more fleshed-out prose just as you did with your tweets.
In sum, whether the content was valid, accurate, approved by Melissa and Doug or not, the structure of how you relayed that back-and-forth drives an immediate response mechanism in me, the initial effect of which is a jaundiced perception of anything you might be saying because you were being a conversation hog. I can get past that of course, but again, I am just explaining what drove my comment above.
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Ah, I understand where you’re coming from now. You’ve misunderstood, though. I did NOT “expand” or “flesh out” my tweets. I simply combined them into paragraph form. For instance, this paragraph…
…was actually composed of four separate tweets, written in rapid succession, and always intended to be read as a single thought, to wit:
Tweet #1: My only solace is the generic belief that crises are usually overstated in pessimists’ minds. Grumpy Old Men r usually wrong.
Tweet #2: Doom is always imminent, The End is always nigh, and yet somehow we muddle through, and in the end, actually thrive. But…
Tweet #3: …in this case, I feel the crisis is so profound and foundational and trans-ideological, my generic optimism is outweighed..
Tweet #4: ..by specific pessimism. And thus have I become a Grumpy Old Man at the tender age of 28. #GetOffMyLawn
As you can see, the only change I made was to change “r usually wrong” to “are usually wrong.” That’s what I mean about expanding twitter-speak. I’m not expanding thoughts, just undoing dumb abbreviations that are sometimes necessitated by the format.
Melissa, for part, didn’t post any multi-tweet thoughts. If she had, I would have certainly combined them into paragraphs, like I did mine. But she’s better at keeping herself to 140-character thoughts. I’m constantly violating the 140-character rule with multi-part tweets. 🙂
The point, though, is that Melissa had the opportunity, in our original conversation, to respond to each and every substantive point I made, because I did make those points, in real time, in the same words shown on this post. I didn’t go back and re-write them after the fact, except for a few purely cosmetic changes like the r/are thing.
“The left has always insisted that individuals have no rights or political identity apart from their status as a member of an identity group.
The right has always insisted on treating individuals as individuals.”
Except when they wanted to treat slaves as non-people, but sure, why not live in your fairy tale world.
I’m sorry David, I wasn’t aware that Burke, Buckley, and Hayek owned slaves. Can you point out to me where and when in the conservative political philosophical tradition slavery was defended and supported? Because I sure could easily show you where in liberal / progressive political philosophical tradition things like eugenics, genocide, work camps, re-education camps, and other forms of human rights abuses were understood as necessary and acceptable means to an end (e.g. communism, fascism, and so on).
Dane on the Roman Dictator: well, yeah, they didn’t have absolute power. I guess it can be best described as near absolute power. In any event, they didn’t need the Senate during a dictator’s reign, which removed some problems to responding to crises.
And if you are counting when the Romans started listening and giving rights to the Plebs . . . I’d then put our democracy at 135 years, not over 200. After all, slaves couldn’t vote until then, and we did slavery in a particularly disenfranchising way. So that’s much close to the Romans – they may still have us beat for length. I suspect that a lot of these democracies reflected the people’s will better then we give them credit for – at least as well as ours does in most cases. I think this thread proves that we shouldn’t buy the myth that the human race is constantly improving.
Brendan, I realize what you probably did, but it doesn’t change the core appearance (reality?) that you unfairly dominated the conversation. 😉
Damn liberals and their wanting things like the right for women to vote, minorities to vote, slaves to be free…
David, that you see these things as hallmarks of liberalism, and assume ipso facto that conservatives wanted the opposite, speaks to the fact that you are either an incredible ignoramus or a complete ass (or both). Your main problem isn’t that you’re liberal, it’s that you have NO FUCKING CLUE about the philosophical makeup and history of your ideological adversaries. You simply don’t know jack shit about political traditions and ideologies, it’s pathetic.
Aaaaand with that, I think the interesting, intelligent, non-pitched-partisan-battle, non-shrill-personal-attack portion of this thread is officially over. Hey, it was fun while it lasted! We made it into the 60s!
I haven’t had much time to contribute or follow this thread, but a couple more thoughts did come to mind:
-The “If we can land a man on the moon…” argument is officially dead, and that is both endemic of and a metaphor for a loss of American can-do spirit. How the **** can you be a 21st-century superpower if you’re soon going to be incapable of putting a person into orbit? The more I think about it, it seems to me like America’s abandoning of space* has a parallel to Rome’s withdrawal from Britain (if we insist on using the empire model).
*Yeah, yeah, technically we’re not. But no matter how much Glenn Reynolds tries to convince otherwise, IMHO this country is giving up big time. And NASA’s space budget would only pay for four and a half days of Medicare.
-Re dcl’s comment 40 The US is the oldest extant democracy. And has existed as such longer than both Athens and Rome did.:
“There wasn’t a democracy yet that didn’t commit suicide.” –John Adams
Fearing that the ould Brain cells (not altogether unlike the Hair o’ertopping their Roof) may by now have Thinned out beyond the point of producing a worthy contribution to this commendable colloquy — iow, being most definitely Not the multidisciplinary PhD candidate herein Summoned, though I might nominate Casey, if I thought he’d Accept :] — I’ll content myself (for Now; i.e. Beware 🙂 with a few pertinent (IMHO) Quotations. (Only one of whose attributions I have actually Verified to my full satisfaction but Hey, if people Believe stuff it must be True, right? 🙂 To wit:
“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” ~ Winston Churchill, MP, House of Commons
“In my last canvass, I told the people of my district, that, if they saw fit to re-elect me, I would serve them as faithfully as I had done; but, if not, they might go to Hell , and I would go to Texas.” ~ former U.S. Representative David Crockett (Anti-Jacksonian, Tennessee)
“We have met the Enemy and he is Us.” ~ Pogo (as transcribed by Walt Kelly 😉
“There is no Perfection in the universe.” ~ Prof. Stephen Hawking; “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking”, Discovery Channel
WOW – I take the day off to go see my #4 daughter graduate from High School, and the post suddenly gets interesting !
Where to start … hmmmm … how about the obvious ‘moles’ to ‘whack’ …
Oh – and, by way of preparation … I pay attention to what folk *do* much more than what they *say* …
AMLTrojan #64 – I would get out my popcorn and soda, except that I realise you are in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent … what makes the National Socialists able to be validly called socialists is what they did … North Korea calling itself democratic is worth about as much as the current Dems calling themselves democratic – their actions don’t support the word … (North Korea currently is less democratic than our current dems, but not for lack of the current Dems trying … you know, slippery slope and all that) …
Which brings us to Brendan #59 … so I went to the “point-by-point refutation, with lengthy quotes, of a just-published, author-selected excerpt of the objectionable book” – only to find that what the point-by-point refutterer’s utterances basically boil down to “You can’t say Obama is doing nothing about the war and terrorism because he has mentioned each of them in speeches” …
Specifics – ‘Excerpt number one’s’ “refutation” ignores the *fact* that that well-known propaganda arm of the Bush Dictatorship, you know, the New York Times, told us about it happening at the time it was happening and the Obama Administration was sufficiently embarrassed to try to deny it had happened, even as the MSM continued to print/broadcast excerpts showing Administration folk using the OneSpeak version (that’s, like, NewSpeak with an Obama twist) … (follow the link, if you doubt what I show here) … a little later, in the same “refutation”, the author, himself, utters the recursive refutation of his own “refutation” – and I quote “http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402818.html” …
Next hypothesis, Brendan ? (cuz Sullivan-supported Friedersdorf’s hypothesis just got pwn’d) …
gahrie’s #53 … it is remarkably conspicuous how the d-list folk (apparently more and more regularly including Brendan) treat gahrie’s questions as being similar to kryptonite for Superman (something away from which to stay at all costs) … at the time of me typing this response, I read all the way up to #69 with no substantive response, no fact-based response, from the d-list …
Brendan #51 – a nice doozie – amazingly easy to actually refute (as opposed to Andrew Sullivan-level “refute”) simply by quoting from the same cited article …
“But Reagan had a critical insight. He understood that the burden of government is more easily borne if economic growth is high. This required keeping tax rates as low as possible — especially on our nation’s most productive citizens — maintaining price stability and minimizing government regulation of private industry. “ {my emphasis}
“Nor is it realistic to think that taxes can be kept at 19 percent of GDP when spending is projected to grow by about 50 percent of GDP over the next generation, according to both the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office.” {my emphasis}
Here’s a concept for the big picture – how about, since we seem to both accept the first quoted part, we take not of the bolded part of the second quotd part – and start picking the programs we can actually afford and scale back the rest – with particular emphasis on not adding any *new* ones until we get the budget back into balance ??? (which, funnily enough, your new (well, current, at least) hero Bartlett supports – “Instead, he pushed efficiency and economy in government and emphasized that its bills needed to be paid. Balancing the budget was Eisenhower’s main concern.”) …
Balancing the budget – now *there’s* something we could all get behind … we have to do it as individuals and families or Bad Things happen … how about we start requiring politicians and government to move towards that goal ? (Oh – and *without* adding new programs (except in dire emergency) *before* we get there)
“David, that you see these things as hallmarks of liberalism, and assume ipso facto that conservatives wanted the opposite, speaks to the fact that you are either an incredible ignoramus or a complete ass (or both). Your main problem isn’t that you’re liberal, it’s that you have NO FUCKING CLUE about the philosophical makeup and history of your ideological adversaries. You simply don’t know jack shit about political traditions and ideologies, it’s pathetic.”
Actually dumbass I was responding to gahries assertion about the left being wrong on everything. I never said, not once that modern conservatives are ipso facto in favor of slavery. But hey, why let facts get in the way of a personal attack on me, it’s what you’ve been doing since day one.
The one who doesn’t know Jack shit is the one who jumped in the middle of a conversation and managed, even though the text is right there to get it completely wrong and just make up something I didn’t say. Which of course goes back to the whole intellectual dishonesty thing.
Actually dumbass I was responding to gahries assertion about the left being wrong on everything.
I have NEVER said the left is wrong on everything. Never.
Further more, I have never said the right is right on everything. In fact on another thread I was asked for a list of things from the right I disapproved of, or thought were mistakes. I provided a detailed list.
So let’s turn that around…how about a list from some of the leftys on this blog (especially you David) of things you disapprove of, or consider mistakes from the left? (and no..being to nice to the right does not count)
David:
IMO you are the best example of what Brendan seems to be concerned about.
In my comment #48, when I outlined my position, I explicitly extended an olive branch to my opponents, with the admission that you are as sincere in my beliefs as I am, and are not necessarily evil or acting from vice.
In your comment #50 (and thereafter), you reject the olive branch and launch into a partisan attack by setting up a strawman and completely ignoring the point I was making.
…sincere in your beliefs as I am in mine……
This is why we can’t have nice things.
This thread jumped the shark way back at comment #2 when David started with the fingerpointing, which is precisely what Brendan’s post was trying to avoid.
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/517631/698617.jpg
Also, gahrie wrote, “In fact on another thread I was asked for a list of things from the right I disapproved of, or thought were mistakes. I provided a detailed list.”
Indeed, that was me who asked for the list and it was much appreciated. I think it’s easy for anyone defending his political views to be caricatured or unfairly represented (see: this entire thread) and I’m well aware that people are capable of nuance or criticizing their own side – I just wish we’d actually see it more, and not just in a “the problem with the liberals/conservatives is that they’re not liberal/conservative enough!” way. I see flashes of moderation here and there, but then it quickly turns into sustained and ardent douchebaggery.
Now, at least for me, I hope it’s clear that I’m willing to criticize the left (I’m a moderate liberal, and no, I don’t say that as a way of disguising extreme views with centrism). It’s just really hard to stay on balance and moderate when people bring up really extreme views, as you do with your acceptance of Goldberg’s “liberal fascism,” for example. Pretty much anything I say in response to that is going to look more liberal because your view is so far to the right. Someone tell me why I’m wrong about that – I’m certainly willing to listen and consider.
Now, it’s a fallacy to assume that a “moderate” view is always more correct than an extreme – you could very well be right – sometimes the truth does live at the fringe of commonly held belief. But don’t expect people to take you seriously when you’re always coming down on the same far end of a political ideology. Again, I’d just like to see more of the calling out both “sides” when people debate in the comments. This probably sounds trite (oh, wow, someone trying to stay above the fray and act like a moderate voice), but I stand by it.
LOL @ Doc’s comment, and kcatnd’s jpeg.
Alasdair, I’m sorry but I just can’t bring myself to bother a detailed rebuttal. I know it’ll get us nowhere. You completely missed the point, and no doubt you’ll continue to do so. Your faux-rebuttal is, again, simply a perfect example of the very thing I’m talking about. You cite a single fact, undisputed by Friedersdorf, which categorically DOES NOT provide factual support for the numerous lies and deceptions that McCarthy builds on top of it, yet you use that single fact as evidence that McCarthy’s entire thesis is correct, and Friedersdorf’s entire rebuttal is incorrect, when any fair-minded person, reading the texts in question and using their logical faculties to process and interpret them, knows that that it is categorically untrue. You simply live in an alternative universe, Alasdair — the very alternate universe of “sheer bullshit, propaganda, nonsense, obvious illogic and outright lies” that I was talking about in my post — and there’s nothing anyone can do to drag you out of it. You’re an affront to the term “conservative,” and to rational discourse, and to human reason. I’m done talking to you on this thread.
how about a list from some of the leftys on this blog (especially you David) of things you disapprove of, or consider mistakes from the left? (and no..being to nice to the right does not count)
I suppose you consider me, these days, to be one of the “leftys on this blog,” so I’ll make an initial, off-the-top-of-my-head response:
* Liberals tend to ignore the Law of Unintended Consequences when proposing and enacting policies that sound good to their moral compasses but are impractical, or at least have severe practical difficulties, in reality.
* Relatedly, liberals tend to have too much faith in government power. (Conservatives tend to have too little, but you asked for problems with the Left.)
* Liberals tend to demonize business and corporations to an unjustifable degree. (Again, conservatives tend to lionize them unduly, in line with “free market” principles, and to demonize unions unfairly, but we’re talking about the Left here.) Classic example: the notion that somehow BP isn’t doing all it can to stop the spill in the Gulf, when it’s completely f***ing obvious that, all moral and environmental considerations aside, BP has every incentive in the world to stop the spill, and are undoubtedly trying as hard as they can, at this point. That doesn’t mean they aren’t subject to criticism for failures of prevention BEFORE the spill, but once the spill happened, it’s batshit crazy to suggest that pretty much anyone on the planet cares more about stopping the spill than BP. This is but one example of a warped liberal mentality when it comes to corporations.
* Liberals are often too eager to jump to the conclusion that America and American policies are to blame for this, that or the other thing. (Conservatives are often unjustifiably unwilling to even consider this possibility, even on those occasions when it’s true or potentially true, and unjustifiably criticize liberals for “blaming America first” even when liberals are right or arguably right. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth to the meme, even though it gets vastly overblown and blatantly demogogued by the Right.)
* Liberals are too god-damn politically correct, and too easily offended by trivial things, and/or things that are perfectly defensible but can be interpreted uncharitably, particularly when said by conservatives. Liberals often infer political incorrectness, yet think it was implied.
I could go on, but that’s a decent start, no?
A few more:
* The blanket opposition of many liberals to nuclear power is ridiculous, unjustified and harmful to the nation’s interest — and the environment! This is highly relevant given what’s happening in the Gulf right now. If environmentalists hadn’t spent the last several decades blocking domestic development of the cleanest and safest practical energy source presently available, maybe the Gulf of Mexico couldn’t be a sea of crude oil right now.
* Related to the above, liberals tend to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. As in, let’s not develop nuclear power because we should really be developing solar and wind instead. And let’s ignore the fact that, realistically, solar and wind aren’t enough, in the foreseeable future, to supplant “dirty” energy, so by blocking “less dirty, more safe, but still not perfectly clean” nuclear energy, we’re inevitably causing MORE dirty power (coal, oil) to exist. Liberals often want their positions to be “pure” even when that is counterproductive.
* Liberal hostility to efforts at innovation and accountability in education is a big problem. The source of this hosility is, at best, the above-mentioned tendency to the perfect be the enemy of the good, or at worst, a tendency to carry water for teachers’ unions. Probably a combination of the two.
* Liberals frequently, and rather cartoonishly, fail to acknowledge the legitimate moral qualms that anti-abortion folks have, regarding their motives as obviously anti-woman and anti-progress rather than, I dunno, thoroughly defensible takes on an incredibly difficult and troubling moral issue.
* Liberals often think the Constitution says what they want it to say, rather than what it says. And they tend to see legal issues as morality tales pitting the “little guy” vs. the “big guy,” the powerful vs. the powerless, rather than judging the proper outcome through the prism of — wait for it — THE LAW.
Since you may be looking for specific policies to criticize, I’ll add to those (since Brendan was talking about generic things):
* Entering Vietnam under JFK
* CIA getting involved in Afghanistan (under Carter, I’m not talking about the 2001 invasion)
Although perhaps those aren’t good. Those are examples of liberals doing things that are more stereotypical right-wing, I suppose, and I have a long, storied list of things like that. Let’s consider things that the left has supported that I disagree with:
* Roe v. Wade: I still think this ruling is a bit tenuous logically. I’m not necessarily against legalized abortion, but I don’t agree with the ruling. Also this dovetails with Brendan’s point about the legitimate moral qualms anti-abortion people have. I’ve frequently pointed out to fellow lefties how if you accept the premise that these people think abortion is murder, it has to be incredibly difficult for them to allow it to happen.
* A specific recent one, secret ballots re: unions.
* Opposition to free trade agreements. Now, much like Obama, I’m not against putting strings on those agreements (environmental and labor requirements of the country that the agreement is with, jobs programs for people displaced here), but they should be in place. Although where I’d break with the right on this is that I believe it’s preposterous to advocate free movement of goods without free (well, okay, less restricted, we don’t have completely free movement of goods, either, even when we have free trade agreements) movement of labor.
That last one isn’t super specific, but you caught me just as everyone wants to go to lunch. 🙂 I’m sure I could name more given time.
It’s just really hard to stay on balance and moderate when people bring up really extreme views, as you do with your acceptance of Goldberg’s “liberal fascism,” for example.
What is so extreme about Goldberg’s book? Have you read it?
If he had written a book that accused the liberals as being fascist (which he didn’t…he explicitly states he is not accusing liberals as being fascist) how would that be more extreme than the constant description over the last 60 years of Republicans and conservatives as fascists?
To say that the book calls liberals fascists is the same things as saying Darwin says we are descended from monkeys.
Goldberg merely makes the heavily referenced case that:
Fascism is an ideology born from the left, from leftists and was based on leftist ideologies.
and
Until the Second World War, the progressive movement and the radical left in the United States glowingly endorsed fascism, Hitler and Mussolini.
I truly don’t understand why the left refuses to acknowledge these historical facts. They don’t try to deny that communism is a leftist ideology. Communism was just as autocratic, just as repressive, just as murderous as fascism.
My only explanation is that the popular culture has clearly identified fascism as evil, and excuses the crimes of communism.
@gahrie: You’ve never said the left was wrong on everything? Curious:
“It simply seems incredible to me that an intelligent, rational person could really believe all that crap the leftys are saying.”
Some olive branch. Your damn right i’m going to attack something as blatantly wrong as that statement.
But in the spirit of fairness I’ll respond to your later request for things the left has done that I consider flawed and/or wrong.
1) Japanese internment camps
2) Abortion rights
3) Bay of Pigs
4) Some parts of affirmative action, especially in areas like college admissions
5) John Kerry for President
6) Laws banning toys in fast food kids meals, laws banning trans-fats in New York, plastic bags from stores in Seattle, etc.
We’ve been through the “fascism is an ideology of the left” thing before, and if I remember correctly I or someone else pretty soundly refuted that.
You can pick any number of the citations here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_and_ideology#Fascism_and_the_political_spectrum
to establish irrefutably that it is not solely of the left, forget about the fact that it’s pretty obviously more a feature of right-wing nationalist governments.
When we talk about fascism in the 20th century, we talk about nationalist movements. Nationalism is a feature of the right, not the left.
I dispute your assertion that nationalism is a feature of the right. Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and North Korea are all nationalistic just off the top of my head.
Fascism’s nationalistic feature is pretty much what distinguishes it from communism.
it is not solely of the left,
Well, we are making progress. Just to be clear, you are now acknowledging that fascism is of the left. I will counter by acknowledging that it is not solely of the left.
When we talk about fascism in the 20th century,
What do you mean by this? Are you implying that fascism has changed since the turn of the century?
And just for the record, citing wiki about politics is pretty useless. It is a well established fact that wiki is controlled by the left, and that they are aggressive in preserving their interpretation of politics and history.
I dispute your assertion that nationalism is a feature of the right. Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and North Korea are all nationalistic just off the top of my head.
It’s not a feature solely of the right, but it is certainly associated more with the right than of the left. The left tends to be more internationalist. Of course this all gets cloudy. The Left SRs and even most of the early Bolsheviks were incredibly internationalist, as was Castro early on but as we all know by Stalin’s time the role of the ComIntern was diminished. Does that mean Stalin wasn’t a leftist? I don’t know, that’s a difficult question. Any sober analysis of Stalin will concede he certainly diminished the leftist aspects of even Lenin’s ideology (ex. Lenin’s more hands off approach to the ethnic question).
Either way, the states you list are certainly not strongly nationalistic, at least not on a scale that includes Fascist Italy and Fascist Germany. The United States has nationalistic elements, but I wouldn’t call it a nationalist regime. I certainly wouldn’t call them fascist regimes. Fascism specifically opposes Marxism and class based conflict. Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea each seek to exploit class based divisions, so they are not Fascist.
Well, we are making progress. Just to be clear, you are now acknowledging that fascism is of the left. I will counter by acknowledging that it is not solely of the left.
Sigh. I can’t tell whether you are being purposefully obtuse or what. No, I am not acknowledging that. I am stating simply that if you say it is *of the left* I am establishing that whether or not its spectrum includes the left or not, it is not solely of the left. If it not solely of the left then, it is essentially incorrect to say it is of the left.
The point being, I think it is of the right, but I think the references in that link, while not establishing my viewpoint demolish yours.
What do you mean by this? Are you implying that fascism has changed since the turn of the century?
I am meaning to say that 20th century fascism is the yardstick by which fascism is measured. It is both the first inception and the most pure.
And just for the record, citing wiki about politics is pretty useless.
No, it’s not useless. It solely depends on the quality of citations, and the section I’ve referenced is very well cited.
To flesh out the last part more, essentially what I’ve done is say, “go read all this, it says what I mean”.
Further to the point of the conversation though, it seems counter to the very premise to be having a discussion about wither the left is essentially fascist, born out of fascism or the other way around.
I rejected the “Bush is a Fascist” cry from the left, you should reject the, uh… “the left is a fascist” cry from… uh… yourself? It’s counterproductive, not terribly accurate, and kind of makes you look like a fool.
Obama is the black Ronald Reagan and Republicans hate him with a passion.
I recall people, on this very blog, blaming Obama for the bad economy in November of 2008 because Americans KNEW that a democrat was going to take over and that was the problem with the economy. Certainly nothing that the Republicans running the Senate and Congress for 12 of the last 13 years could be responsible for, or the Republican president of the last 8 years could be responsible for.
Brendan’s point is made with this thread and the assinine labels that are attached to the political parties. We really need to identify liberals as socialists, facists or nazis? Is the Democratic party really that close to nazis? I mean really?!!?
What are the Democrats not listening to with regards to Republicans? Americans voted democrats into power, as our system goes, because the Republicans were miserable failures in their jobs. I understand the republican mouthpieces trying to disseminate their positions and stop democrats from advancing their agendas, but labeling Obama a socialist or saying that he’s going to tax us to death or run us into debt… that’s already happened before he took office.
To suggest that ‘well democrats said the same things about Bush/Cheney’, that’s true, but after Bush planned to or did murder 100,000+ people in Iraq for no good (to most rational people (90% of earth)) reason, and numerous other ‘mistakes’ (on purpose) that hurt real people.
The only time I can recall a president being maligned before even taking office is Bill Clinton, and again it was a democrat. I truly don’t think much is going to change in this coming election because so many of the anti-democrats are eye-bugging nut-jobs who voice strange criticisms of a government that was left in turmoil when we (the voters) “threw the bums out”. It’s only the dwindling numbers of Republicans and tea partiers who actually think putting Republicans back in office is the answer.
This is an event-horizon, but it’s the death of the conservative movement, when the Republican party was hijacked by extremists and turned into the goofball express. What do they stand for? Pointing out that Obama is a socialist and a community organizer still? It’s 2010, the wake-up call is in November. The Republican party still has no direction or leadership worthy of primetime. Until that happens the reason nobody is considering Republican opinions is because there are none, and Sarah Palin is your leader due to lack of interest in the position.
I rejected the “Bush is a Fascist” cry from the left, you should reject the, uh… “the left is a fascist” cry from… uh… yourself? It’s counterproductive, not terribly accurate, and kind of makes you look like a fool.
Why don’t you guys READ what I write?
How many times do I have to say the premise is not that the left is fascist, but that fascism comes from the left? Why is that I can say communism comes from the left and no one immediately leaps to the conclusion “He saying all of us are communists!”?
it seems counter to the very premise to be having a discussion about wither the left is essentially fascist, born out of fascism or the other way around.
I am explicitly (and so is Goldberg by the way) not attempting to have that conversation.
Again, have you guys read his book and/or looked at his evidence?
Except its not from the left its from the far right:
“Scholars generally consider fascism to be on the far right of the conventional left-right political spectrum.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
If your point is to make sure the conversation doesn’t go towards liberals/communists/fascists, then why introduce that in the first place?
Goldberg is sliming American liberals by pointing to the similarities in ideology that they have with Hitler. People do the same by comparing Republicans in the same fashion, and yes they do have things in common, but so what?!? Most sensible people know that the number of American liberals (and republicans) don’t want a tyrannical state.
Furthermore associating the Republican and Democratic party of 60 to 100 years ago to today’s parties is completely dishonest as well, not only because people were completely different back then, society was completely different back then, but the parties were completely different back then as well. The Republicans who supported Ronald Reagan as recently as 30 years ago, would not support him today because for one thing, he would be a Democrat. His political philosophy was completely the opposite of what Republicans stand for today, from negotiating with our enemies to amnesty forget it. They would’ve threw the bum out the second he opened his mouth.
David K:
You left out the word “leftist” before scholars.
I’ll simply repeat the so far unanswered question…have any of you actually read Goldberg’s book?
No, but it’s not up to me to read an entire book to respond to a premise that you introduce to this thread that is in opposition to everything I’ve learned as a historian.
How about you provide for us some of the centerpieces of his argument?
In the end, however, for once I agree with Sandy:
If your point is to make sure the conversation doesn’t go towards liberals/communists/fascists, then why introduce that in the first place?
Why indeed? This is Glenn Beck theater at its best. “I’m not saying you are this, but this comes from you.”
Perhaps in an literal sense you are correct, to discuss shared roots or shared ideology is not to state that one thing is the other. But then what, other than an academic exercise, does the point add to conversations here.
I understand that you weren’t the person to bring it up first in this thread, but you are, to my knowledge, the person who referenced it first and most regularly here on the blog.
gahrie, this discussion isn’t about whether “Liberal Fascism” is correct or if people have read it (I have) – that’s a distraction; I only introduced it as an example of a highly partisan and, as Jim pointed out, unproductive line of thought that adds nothing to what we’re actually talking about here. It’s an extreme, generally discredited view that a sliver of people actually hold and has no place in a broad sweeping debate about Brendan’s Grand Unified Theory of PANIC!!!
Or is this some kind of bizarre performance meta-art that’s going above my head?
It’s an extreme, generally discredited view that a sliver of people actually hold and has no place in a broad sweeping debate about Brendan’s Grand Unified Theory of PANIC!!!
I think you are wrong. I think it has a place in a discussion of the state of modern political struggle.
The purpose for the book on it’s most basic level is an attempt to get YOU guys to stop calling us guys NAZIs or fascists.
David, Jim et al, if you wish to insist that fascism is of the right and not of the left, how do you reconcile the fact that fascism and Nazism were very popular among early 20th-century progressives — which is the point of Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism? Early 20th-century progressives may have disagreed about communism vs. fascism, but they were in violent agreement that the constitutional monarchies in Europe and American republicanism were fundamentally flawed, including classical liberal / capitalist socio-economic principles en vogue at the time.
The reality is, fascism (and one of its opposites, libertarianism) is a great example of why the traditional left-to-right ideology spectrum is flawed. There is nothing “conservative” about fascism, and there is nothing “liberal” about it either — except for the fact that modern liberals consistently claim the label “progressive”, and many past progressives were proud fascists.
David at #83, how dense can you be? gahrie said at #48 said:
He was clearly NOT attacking the left, he was equating how the two sides feel about each other to later make the following point:
In other words, he is making an argument that the vitriol and partisanship inherent in our politics and media today are not reflective of some sort of depressing, rotting phenomenon, they are glaring examples of the inherent strength of our political system. You may disagree, but to ignore the point he was attempting to make and to instead spin his opening statement as an unhinged attack on the left is disingenuous at best.
Brendan at #68, apparently you skipped right past David at #2, David at #55, David at #56, and, well, you get the point.
Brendan at #51, I have avoided responding to that particular comment for lack of time, but I had no intent of letting it slip by unanswered.
But Jim, haven’t you heard, cutting taxes raises revenue!! ALWAYS!! And raising taxes cuts revenue!! ALWAYS!! I know this to be so, because Jesus Reagan told me so!!
This is a caricature that exists solely in the liberal economist mind. What supply-siders claim is that raising taxes will always result in less revenue growth than predicted by static scoring because taxpayers change economic behavior to avoid taxes, and in some future year (e.g. 5 or 10 years down the road), you will pull in less revenue that year because of stunted economic growth than if you had left the tax rate alone. Alternatively, cutting taxes will result in less revenue, but not as much of a drop as predicted by static scoring, and long-term, revenues will eventually catch up and exceed what you’d get if you simply left the tax rate alone.
This principle is captured in the Laffer Curve, the general theory of which is now widely accepted (most disagreements amongst economists are about how sharp or flat the curve is and where current tax rates are along that curve).
To the extent supply-siders have been disingenuous, its been because of their propensity to be rosy in their analysis of when tax cuts will quote-unquote pay for themselves. This can be likened to unions’ propensity to argue for pension increases based on rosy economic forecasts that imply very little risk on the part of the government to grant.
I’ve sent you an Excel spreadsheet via email, to illustrate the point in hard numbers. Obviously you’ll see that the numbers are largely driven by assumptions, which can be changed to drastically affect the numbers, but all of the assumptions I made reflect observations of economic behavior that are generally accepted to be true.
Although I refrained from saying it in the post, for fear of being more overtly partisan than I already was, this is one of the chief “fairy tales” I was thinking of when I used that term. It has incredible currency on the Right at the moment. It’s as if they don’t realize the mathematical paradox of their view, that surely AT SOME POINT lowering taxes (like, say, to 0%? or perhaps 0.01%? or perhaps some slightly higher number?) would, in fact, cut revenue.
Again, see the Laffer Curve, which is foundational to supply-side economics. The mathematical paradox only exists in your distorted caricature of what supply-side economics purports to represent. You are the one proffering fairy tales here, not supply-siders.
If you don’t believe me that supply-siders believe a caricature of their views, believe one of the founders fo supply-side economics:
I won’t bother to refute Bartlett point-by-point, I will instead respond generally and say that Bartlett, like you, is over-caricaturizing his former supply-side comrades. No doubt partisans in the Bush Administration sold rosier Laffer scenarios than realistic economic analysis would otherwise support, but even granting that, Bartlett is just plain wrong in that tax revenue did recover fairly quickly and arguably grew at a faster rate (and sooner) than if tax rates were otherwise left alone. The sin was on the spending side, where outlays were not sufficiently restrained and deficits were allowed to outpace economic expansion. Simply put, the Bush tax cuts definitely paid for themselves, but they didn’t pay for the corresponding growth in spending (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, Rx Medicare Bill, etc.).
Furthermore, Bartlett attacks Republicans for aiding and abetting the growth of tax credits and loopholes and such, while ignoring the fact that it’s the conservative right (and nobody in the center or on the left) that is the sole political force advocating for tax simplification and reform (either to a flat tax or a national sales tax).
The one point I will happily concede to Bartlett is that Republicans erred in adopting the “starve the beast” approach, which was taken more out of political convenience than out of adherence to any actual philosophical principles (actually cutting spending and ending government programs is too politically difficult). However, it is incorrect to lay the blame of deficits solely at the feet of supply-siders and starve-the-beast-ers. The federal government ran chronic deficits for two decades before Reagan came along with his SSE supporters, and the federal deficits are only getting worse now that Obama and the Democrats have control of the House, Senate, and the White House. I also firmly believe that messing with tax rates at this point is only tinkering around the edges, as we are now at the point where only serious entitlement reform offers any hope of restoring fiscal sanity to the budget. And let me remind you, by the way, of the last two presidents who made any attempt at that sort of reform, but were thoroughly ridiculed and attacked by opposition Democrats — their names are Dubya and Reagan.