US politics challenge

[y66]

From Jack McCallum's tribute to Eunice Kennedy Shriver in this week's Sports Illustrated.

What Eunice did -- and she understood this from the beginning -- was use sport as a vehicle to show what this misunderstood society of the mentally challenged could do. "Everybody told my mother that intellectually challenged kids would start crying if they lost," says Bobby Shriver, "to which my mother said, 'So what?' 'That's what everyone does.' Her thought was, you compete, you exalt if you win, you get sad if you lose and you go back and try harder."

[Fluffy]

If you are a liberal, name conservative thinkers/journalists/columnist that you find very much worth reading. If you are conservative, the same with liberal writers.

What if I don't know what I am on the US poliics scheme?.

 

The only columnist I know about US politics is winstonm, and I don't find him worth reading often ;)

[mycroft]

Simple Fluffy. If you are in Canada, if you're Conservative, you're left-wing. If you're Conservative and from Alberta, you're right-wing. If you're not, you can probably still see the lefties' camp off to your right somewhere, unless you think NDP, in which case, the lefties can't see you in the shadow of Stalin's Kremlin.

 

If you are in most of the EU, you're left-wing. If you think the Ultra-Nationalists have the right idea, if it wasn't for the racist stuff, you're probably just to the right of center (correct spelling in context).

 

Please note, I am a moonbat leftie in Republican North Alberta, so that might colour things. American center is so far away from anything I could possibly believe in that I can't even twist my mind to the right of center. In Canada+Europe, I'm probably reasonably liberal.

[Winstonm]

The only columnist I know about US politics is winstonm, and I don't find him worth reading often

 

That's odd. He's one of my favorites. :(

[Fluffy]

sorry winstonm it is not about how you write, it is rather about what you do write about.

 

But you have your moments ;)

[Winstonm]

sorry winstonm it is not about how you write, it is rather about what you do write about.

 

But you have your moments ;)

No need to apologize - you are as entitled to be completely wrong as anyone else. :)

[cherdanno]

The only columnist I know about US politics is winstonm, and I don't find him worth reading often

 

That's odd. He's one of my favorites. ;)

We could tell.

[Winstonm]

The only columnist I know about US politics is winstonm, and I don't find him worth reading often

 

That's odd. He's one of my favorites. ;)

We could tell.

:)

[hrothgar]

I read Andrew Sullivan quite frequently. (He certainly describes himself as a conservative) I used to read Safire. I hope that Douthat will do a better job with his slot...

Douthat's latest is down right offensive

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/opinion/...uthat.html?_r=1

[MattieShoe]

I'm not really conservative or liberal (or both, depending on the issue I suppose). That said, I love NPR. I don't think they lean in any particular direction and they provide a clearer view from both sides. Jon Stewart is definitely liberal and it's a comedy show more than political commentary, but in between all the jokes, his comments are usually very insightful and compelling.

 

It's just so satisfying to watch him rip Jim Cramer to shreds.

[y66]

Douthat's latest is down right offensive

What is the offensive part? His assertion of a "global encounter with a resurgent Islam" and characterization of Benefict's action as "the first step against Christianity’s most enduring and impressive foe"?

 

Isn't Douthat a devout Catholic? Seems like he's not letting this get in the way of calling em like he sees em. Most definitely not pandering a la so much of what passes for conservative commentary these days.

 

Speaking of pandering, I recently read Douthat's NYT predecessor William Kristol's comments on a new Gallup poll reporting

Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.

I can't remember the last time I read something by Kristol that didn't seem mailed in.

[y66]

Good story about liberal economist Paul Krugman in current New Yorker by Lisa MacFarquhar.

 

Excerpt:

Last August, Krugman decided that before he and Wells departed for a bicycle tour of Scotland he would take a couple of days to speak at the sixty-seventh world science-fiction convention, to be held in Montreal. (Krugman has been a science-fiction fan since he was a boy.) At the convention, there was a lot of extremely long hair, a lot of blue hair, and a lot of capes. There was a woman dressed as a cat, there was a woman with a green brain attached to her head with wire, there was a person in a green face mask, there was a young woman spinning wool. There was a Jedi and a Storm Trooper. Those participants who were not dressed as cats were wearing T-shirts with something written on them: “I don’t understand—and I’m a rocket scientist,” “I see dead pixels,” “Math is delicious.” Krugman has always had a nerdy obsession with puns. (He is very proud of a line in one of his textbooks: “Efforts to negotiate a resolution to Europe’s banana split had proved fruitless.”) He also likes costumes. Once, he and Wells gave a Halloween party where the theme was economics topics—two guests came as Asian tigers, several came as hedge funds, one woman came as capital, dressed as a column. Sitting up onstage at the science-fiction convention, Krugman looked happy to be there. It seemed that these were, in some worrying sense, his people.

 

“Hi, everyone!” he called out.

 

“Hi!” everyone called back.

 

Krugman explained that he’d become an economist because of science fiction. When he was a boy, he’d read Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” trilogy and become obsessed with the central character, Hari Seldon. Seldon was a “psychohistorian”—a scientist with such a precise understanding of the mechanics of society that he could predict the course of events thousands of years into the future and save mankind from centuries of barbarism. He couldn’t predict individual behavior—that was too hard—but it didn’t matter, because history was determined not by individuals but by laws and hidden forces. “If you read other genres of fiction, you can learn about the way people are and the way society is,” Krugman said to the audience, “but you don’t get very much thinking about why are things the way they are, or what might make them different. What would happen if ?”

 

With Hari Seldon in mind, Krugman went to Yale, in 1970, intending to study history, but he felt that history was too much about what and not enough about why, so he ended up in economics. Economics, he found, examined the same infinitely complicated social reality that history did but, instead of elucidating its complexity, looked for patterns and rules that made the complexity seem simple. Why did some societies have serfs or slaves and others not? You could talk about culture and national character and climate and changing mores and heroes and revolts and the history of agriculture and the Romans and the Christians and the Middle Ages and all the rest of it; or, like Krugman’s economics teacher Evsey Domar, you could argue that if peasants are barely surviving there’s no point in enslaving them, because they have nothing to give you, but if good new land becomes available it makes sense to enslave them, because you can skim off the difference between their output and what it takes to keep them alive. Suddenly, a simple story made sense of a huge and baffling swath of reality, and Krugman found that enormously satisfying.

 

This was, he discovered later, a development that Keynes had helped to bring about. In the nineteen-twenties and thirties, economics had been more like history: institutional economics was dominant, and, in opposition to neoclassical economics, emphasized the complicated interactions between political, social, and economic institutions and the complicated motives that drove human economic behavior. Then came the Depression, and the one question that people wanted economists to answer was “What should we do?” “The institutionalists said, ‘Well, it’s very deep, it’s complex, I mean, you just talk about what happened in 1890,’ ” Krugman says. “Keynesian economics, which was coming out of the model-based tradition, even if it was pretty loose-jointed by modern standards, basically said, ‘Push this button.’ ” Push this button—print more money, spend more money—and the button-pushing worked. Push-button economics was not only satisfying to someone of Krugman’s intellectual temperament; it was also, he realized later, politically important. Thinking about economic situations as infinitely complex, with any number of causes going back into the distant past, tended to induce a kind of fatalism: if the origins of a crisis were deeply entangled in a country’s culture, then maybe the crisis was inevitable, perhaps insoluble—even deserved.

 

“What does it mean to do economics?” Krugman asked on the stage in Montreal. “Economics is really about two stories. One is the story of the old economist and younger economist walking down the street, and the younger economist says, ‘Look, there’s a hundred-dollar bill,’ and the older one says, ‘Nonsense, if it was there somebody would have picked it up already.’ So sometimes you do find hundred-dollar bills lying on the street, but not often—generally people respond to opportunities. The other is the Yogi Berra line ‘Nobody goes to Coney Island anymore; it’s too crowded.’ That’s the idea that things tend to settle into some kind of equilibrium where what people expect is in line with what they actually encounter.”

[y66]

From Paul Krugman's blog today:

 

Gary Younge

reminds us of another great Orwell essay,

In Front of Your Nose

:

 

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

.

Orwell's essay Looking Back On The Spanish War, which Krugman also mentioned recently, contained these memorable lines among others:

 

I know it is the fashion to say that most of recorded history is lies anyway. I am willing to believe that history is for the most part inaccurate and biased, but what is peculiar to our own age is the abandonment of the idea that history COULD be truthfully written. In the past people deliberately lied, or they unconsciously coloured what they wrote, or they struggled after the truth, well knowing that they must make many mistakes; but in each case they believed that 'facts' existed and were more or less discoverable. And in practice there was always a considerable body of fact which would have been agreed to by almost everyone. If you look up the history of the last war in, for instance, the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, you will find that a respectable amount of the material is drawn from German sources. A British and a German historian would disagree deeply on many things, even on fundamentals, but there would still be that body of, as it were, neutral fact on which neither would seriously challenge the other. It is just this common basis of agreement, with its implication that human beings are all one species of animal, that totalitarianism destroys. Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as 'the truth' exists. There is, for instance, no such thing as 'Science'. There is only 'German Science', 'Jewish Science', etc. The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but THE PAST. If the Leader says of such and such an event, 'It never happened'--well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five--well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs--and after our experiences of the last few years that is not a frivolous statement.

This guy's stuff is as cogent as ever.

[mgoetze]

I seriously doubt Orwell would be any conservative's favourite liberal columnist. ;) Not that he is anywhere near what USians think of as a "liberal"...

[y66]

What's up with Indiana? They seem to have way more than their share of sensible Republicans. This guy, in addition to Richard Lugar, makes 2.

[the_dude]

Another vote for Samuelson .. I find him to be outstanding in his ability to detach the partisan positions and analyze an issue logically.

 

However, since I'm a fiscal conservative (and he pretty much is too) that isn't really in the spirit of this post.

 

On the other side, I guess I read Krugman the most. Not because he is reasonable (I keep a small bucket at the foot of the desk for when I read his columns) but because he will tell me things that some conservative authors do not want me to know. I don't think you can be intellectually honest unless you truly understand the opposing viewpoint.

[kenberg]

As you saw, I earlier mentioned Samuelson. I don't keep a diary of what I read, but I am pretty sure that around the time that we had the great budget surpluses and everyone was speaking of how the only problem would be that there were technical issues ion how to retire debt efficiently, he was recommending that we don't spend all of that money until we see it. A good recommendation almost any time.

 

 

I also suggested Gerson. He is religious, which I am not, and a Bush supporter which I am definitely not. Here is a column he recently wrote about our felons and second chances.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/03/AR2011010303883.html

 

I don't have to agree with everything he says, but I find him interesting.

[y66]

Ross Douthat was on Kojo* today talking about the "evolving institution of marriage". I read his column regularly but I've never heard him on the radio before.

 

Except from a recent column of his on this topic:

 

For a long time, the contours of America’s culture war seemed relatively straightforward. On one side was the country’s growing educated class, who tended to be secular, permissive and favorably disposed to the sexual revolution. On the other side were the social conservatives of middle America — benighted yahoos or virtuous yeomen, depending on your point of view, but either way a less-educated and more pious demographic, with more traditional attitudes on sexuality and family.

 

Decades of punditry, pop sociology and prejudice have been premised on this neat division — from the religious right’s Reagan-era claim to be a “Moral Majority” oppressed by a secular elite, to Barack Obama’s unfortunate description of heartland America “clinging” to religion. Like any binary, it oversimplified a complicated picture. But as a beginner’s guide to the culture war, the vision of white-collar social liberals and blue-collar cultural conservatives was, for a substantial period, more accurate than not.

 

That may no longer be the case.

 

rest of story

I used to enjoy reading David Brooks. I have this crazy idea that he's really a closet liberal and that one day he'll find his inner-Biblical namesake and start writing from the heart.

 

* local radio guy

[y66]

Calling all noble savages ...

 

My favorite blogger recently referred to this review of Jamie Galbraith’s "The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too".

 

Excerpts:

 

The general theses can be simply stated. First, while conservatives toyed with laissez-faire, they quickly abandoned it in all important areas of policy-making. For them, it now serves as nothing more than an enabling myth, used to hide the true nature of our world. Ironically, only the progressive still takes the call for “market solutions” seriously, and this is the major barrier to formulating sensible policy. Second, the “industrial state” has been replaced by a predator state, a coalition of relentless opponents of the very idea of a “public interest”, whose purpose is to master the state structure in order to empower a high plutocracy with nothing more than vile and rapacious goals. Finally, the “corporate republic” created by the likes of Dick Cheney is highly unstable, a formula for national failure. Progressives must wrest control from the reactionaries before it is too late for restoration of America as the world’s financial anchor, technological leader, and promoter of collective security.

 

...

 

Economic freedom is reduced to the freedom to shop, including the freedom to buy elections, and anything that interferes is a threat. “Market” means nothing more than “nonstate”, a negation of use of policy in the public interest.... The policy “mistakes” in Iraq or New Orleans or at Bear-Stearns do not result from incompetence—indeed they only appear to be failures because we apply inappropriate measures of success. There is no common good, no public purpose, no shareholder’s interest; we are the prey and governments as well as corporations are run by and for predators. The “failures” enrich the proper beneficiaries even as they “prove” government is no solution.

[kenberg]

I see that the review is from 2008 which explains why I thought I had heard of the book. I haven't read the book but the review certainly is encouragement to do so.

 

People, no doubt myself included, think far too often in quick labels. Free market certainly sounds good, who can be opposed to free, and marketing sounds good but what does it all mean?

 

Over the weekend we visited a couple. The guy is a fiscal conservative and I hope we are still friends. After enough wine we got to what he really proposes. The investment bankers, the auto companies, etc, would all be left on their own to fail if that's the way it went. If the economy crashed, government would accept responsibility to see that people are fed and housed but would not intervene in any other way. After further discussion of how it would all go, I summed up his position as being that government would agree to house up to 80 million people, 20 or so to a room, and feed them beans. Beyond that, the market would take care of things. He agreed that this correctly stated his view, and allowed that it might require some further thought. We plan to serve some really good wine at our next gathering.

[y66]

I have no idea who's behind The Christian Century. But I think it's interesting that a web site with this name had this to say about the Ryan plan.

 

Excerpts:

 

An honest, serious budget plan wouldn't use fuzzy math. It also wouldn't hide behind a bait-and-switch argument. The ostensible linchpin of Ryan's deficit-reduction plan is his idea of converting Medicare into a voucher program and Medicaid into a state-administered block grant. But he also curbs benefits in both programs, and it's those cuts, not the reforms, that would actually save money. Public health-care costs are too high, but that's not because they're public; all health-care costs are too high. Ryan's proposal masks this fact with boilerplate language about the benefits of privatization and local control.

 

If Ryan thinks the poor and the elderly should have to spend more on health care, he should say so directly—that would at least be honest. And it would certainly carry political risks, but it still wouldn't be courageous. Courage requires moral clarity, a commitment to defending what's right. Ryan is using the deficit as an excuse to shrink the government via tax relief for the rich and program cuts that largely target the poor—while sparing military spending. That isn't courageous; it's simply wrong.

 

In fact, one of the most effective responses to the deficit would be to preserve some existing laws. Letting the 2010 health-care reform law go forward, instead of repealing it, would control health costs for everyone and drive down the deficit. And allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled would do a lot to increase revenue. Those positions aren't flashy enough to win praise in the op-ed pages, but they are serious and courageous.

[P_Marlowe]

I have no idea who's behind The Christian Century.

<snip>

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christian_Century

[PassedOut]

I have no idea who's behind The Christian Century. But I think it's interesting that a web site with this name had this to say about the Ryan plan.

 

In fact, one of the most effective responses to the deficit would be to preserve some existing laws. Letting the 2010 health-care reform law go forward, instead of repealing it, would control health costs for everyone and drive down the deficit. And allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled would do a lot to increase revenue. Those positions aren't flashy enough to win praise in the op-ed pages, but they are serious and courageous.

Taking these 'serious and courageous' measures would be a giant step in the right direction, but even more will be needed as the US population ages. Sadly, the free lunch crowd opposes both of those measures, so the politics are tough. Obama has pandered to the free lunchers by pledging to maintain the Bush cuts for folks making less than $200 thousand, so he's part of the problem too.

[kenberg]

Sticking to the theme of this thread I continue to find Samuelson and Gerson very much worth reading. Gerson, perhaps partly from his Christian faith but I like to think mainly from his fundamental view of life, stresses the need for a generous approach to the less fortunate. Why such an attitude is not universal eludes me but if it is, some on the right have done a good job of hiding that fact. Samuelson is a bit too eager to cut medicare and social security, so that it sometimes appears that that is his only plan, but I still find much of what he has to say worthwhile.

 

Compare these two with, say, Charles Krauthammer. CK reminds me of the old story of a public speaker collapsing during a talk. As they hauled him offstage they collected his notes, where he had written in the margin "Argument weak here, shout like hell".

 

Possibly in vague conformance with the thread, I just saw Atlas Shrugged. Maybe my expectations were suitably lowered due to the terrible reviews, but I enjoyed it. Not great, but I enjoyed it. The movie began with six people in the audience including me and my wife. At the end there were four. The other guy in the audience spoke with me in the Men's room afterward to explain that this was real life and Hollywood tried to keep us from seeing it.

[y66]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christian_Century

 

It seems these guys really are Christians. That explains it.