Thursday, February 5, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
I Would Just Like To Say...
Go Friars! 6-2? Defeating #15 Syracuse? This might make us good enough to get an "also garnering votes" spot in one of the polls. But probably not.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
On this stimulus, for those who are interested
So I thought I would write a bit today because as Nick can attest, we in DC had a “snowstorm” (really just 2 inches of snow and some sleet), and no one down here knows how to drive in snow. So as a result, my office is pretty vacant today as no one came into work. So for those of you who have interest, and based on some of the convos I have recently had with some of you, I thought I would post my thoughts on this “stimulus” package but do so in a way that lays out the various arguments of for or against based on different assumptions out there. It frustrates me how the news is reporting this and how politicians are using the term “stimulus.” So here we go for those who have made it this far.
To lay it out upfront, I have been quite torn on various aspects of this as far as its economic benefit. And this is not uncommon in the economics field. Despite the political rhetoric of this being the vast “consensus,” this topic has literally been as the core of argument over academic economic debate for 70 years now, and from an intellectual perspective, this has been very interesting for me to witness in the making. In the end though, I remain skeptical.
So first, the argument in the theoretical world.
So, this stimulus package is based on a model of textbook Keynesian stimulatory fiscal policy that is at the core of any college students into Macro Econ class. So here is how it works. I’m hoping you all have a general concept of the supply and demand chart with the two crossing lines (that will make this easier). If you don’t go here. For those of you who have taken some econ or have read enough, I’m sorry to bore you on this first part.
So… the aggregate demand curve (the total demand in the entire economy) is made up of various components. The equation looks like this:
Y = C + I +G +X
Where: Y= total demand/ output of the economy (GDP)
C= consumer spending
I = Private investment spending
G= Government spending
X = net-exports
So in an economy, during a recession, C and/ or I temporarily falls (why this happens is another huge debate in economics, which I won’t go into here), resulting in lower total output Y. So according to Keynesian theory, in order to buffer the fall, government can take a deficit and either cut taxes, which will increase C and I or increase spending which will increase G. Either way, this increases total output Y (on the supply and demand graph, this shifts D to the right). Notice, the key here is not just spending as the news often seems to imply. What's important is that government takes a deficit, because if it raises taxes to pay for spending, any increase in G will be countered by decreases in C and/ or I. This is why even Obama’s Keynesian advisors are telling him not to repeal the Bush tax cuts right now. After this initial jolt that “primes the pump”, the private sector will now stop its downward spiral and resume its path or growth, where the government will then take surpluses to pay off the deficits from before. How big this chain reaction is depends on what is called the “Keyensian multiplier” which is a center of huge contention, debate and empirical work on exactly how big it is or isn’t. According to Keynesian theory, the government can continue to spend and increase output, until the economy has reached what is called full employment, at which time any new increase has to come at the expense of existing output and more spending only causes inflation. So this is essentially the basic Keynesian stimulus theory.
Now this is only true if you buy this theory. Classical/ Neoclassical economists and Austrian economists both reject this model. They say that government cannot increase output, because the government does not actually create anything, it only redistributes resources. The logic is, in order for government to spend, it must either raise taxes (which defeats the whole purpose of the stimulus even for Keynesians), print money (causing inflation) or borrow money (which the Keynesians argue for). The problem is this money isn’t just sitting there. Unless the government is borrowing money from people who otherwise would have put it under their mattress, the government is taking money out of the I component. It must take money out of the capital markets that would have gone to private investment and therefore any increase in G (or C by tax cuts), would be offset by decreased I, as interest rates rise due to government “crowding out” financial capital. So these schools say all stimulus does it cause deficits and reorder resources. A decent layman’s video (Yes, I’m talking to you Jeff), can be seen here.
Monetarists like Friedman (who's the man by the way for other reasons outside his economic work), don’t completely reject the Keynesian model, but they don’t see it like they do. As mentioned before a Keynesian thinks government can continue to spend and have a positive effect until full employment is reached. Monetarists though don’t see that as simple because it is impossible to target this spending all at just the idle resources, and therefore on the spending side, it just transfers resources that would have been used anyway already. Furthermore, any borrowing drives up interest rates and this creates a drag. The result is inflation. It was this realization in the 70's stagfaltion era that busted the Phillips Curve and the Keynesians had to respond and they altered their assumptions and became Neo-Keynesians for this issue and others. If you want to see a pretty good 5 minute video, watch here. So, because of this even Obama’s own Council of Economic Advisors estimates that the plan will spend about 7% of GDP in order to produce about 3.2% more output. Over half therefore is not new output, but just shifting output from one use to another. Therefore Monetarists generally reject using fiscal stimulus and instead focus on monetary policy via the fed (they also have different assumptions about the business cycle and see itself correcting as long the monetary policy is correct, unlike Keynesians who see the economy potentially falling into a trap less there be exogenous support). Monetarists also have a fundimentally different view of "full employment" vs "natural employment" as well as what type of monetary policy the Fed should do. If your interested read the Monetarist link.
Supply Side Economics (the actual theory, not the bastardized political version of the term), says that even tax cuts in general do not work, because what is important are the incentive forces for supplying the factors of production (labor and investment capital). So they are primarily interested in moving the supply curve (and hence the name of this quasi school), as opposed to the Keynesians who are primarily focused on the demand curve. So they want reductions in the marginal rates of taxes so that it changes behavior of workers and investors. By doing this the marginal benefit of working an addition hour of labor or investing more in a stock goes up while the cost remains the same, so more of it will happen. This concept is where the laffer curve comes from. So they would say that the types of demand style tax cuts that kenysisns prefer like mailing out a check are worthless.
There is also an issue of how strong what is called the Ricardo-Barro effect is, which is essentially, when government takes deficits, people increase their savings due to anticipating higher future taxes in order to pay off the debt. This then partially negates the increase of any stimulus, because people will increase savings as a result of it. (Barro himself, currently at Harvard whote int he WSJ recently attacking the stimulus plan),
So that’s the basic theory. Now the practical problems. Lets assume the Keynesian model is essentially correct. Well here’s where the stimulus bill goes bad even under the theoretical assumptions it was based on.
As was stated, Y can be stimulated by either tax cuts or government spending. Well first tax cuts. One of Friedman’s major contributions was finding out that people generally make spending decisions based on long term expectations of income. If you temporarily have a windfall, you will save most of it. If you temporarily have a shortfall, you will take debt and/ or tap savings. This is why the stimulus package of last spring didn’t do much. Income went up much higher then spending and people saved about 2/3 of it according to the government economic statistics. Most economists now accept this and demand side tax cuts are generally looked down upon as being effective. However, they have an advantage. They can be implemented very quickly. So we still do these, like the rebate checks of last spring and part of the new package. The savings effect is attempted to be minimized by targeting the checks at people most likely to spend them, mainly lower income or unemployed people. So things like food stamps and increased unemployment benefits are generally seen as the most bang for the buck as well and not actual middle class tax cuts.
So that leaves spending. Well the problem here is the time delay. The Congressional Budget Office (before they were strong armed by the congressional dems to take down their estimate from their website, estimated that only about $30 billion of the roughly $350 billion of spending in this bill would actually be spent in the 2009 fiscal year. This is because even “shovel ready” projects take a long time to get going. So this defeats the whole purpose. Even Keynes himself acknowledged this and said in his latter years in 1942 (his famous book was in 1936):
“Organized public works, at home and abroad, may be the right cure for a chronic tendency to a deficiency of effective demand. But they are not capable of sufficiently rapid organization (and above all cannot be reversed or undone at a later date), to be the most serviceable instrument for the prevention of the trade cycle.”
Furthermore, a more advanced look at the Keynesian model states that government stimulus should be targeted at the areas in which there are the most unemployed and idle capital. In the present case, that would be construction workers, manufacturing, mortgage finance and so on and all their supply chains. Because people just cant be retrained overnight (you can’t take a laid of construction worker and make him a doctor), if you focus the stimulus in areas that are for the most part fully employed, all you are going to do is shift resources like I had explained earlier. So that’s another major problem with this bill. The whole bill is about $900 billion. The vast majority does not target these unemployed areas. $325 billion is for education, healthcare, and clean energy (or aide to state governments to keep their programs in this area). These are all sectors with very little unemployment right now and are really the only ones that are currently growing. So any spending here will just divert an already employed person in the private sector to the government driven projects, with higher wages or course as demand goes up. About $275 billion is for demand style tax rebates which I discussed are of minimal use (unless they are made permanent and consumers begin to perceive them as such), about $69 billion is for upper middle class tax cuts via patching the alternative minimum tax again. Only about $180 billion is directly targeting areas of poorer people that will likely spend it as this is for things like food stamps and unemployment insurance. But even some of this is for Medicaid which will just transfer resources. Only about $30 billion or so is actually for new bridges, roads and so on, which is what we think this bill is about when we hear it in the news. And then there is $10 billion so in random business expensing rules with their taxes and so on. Furthermore, somewhere around $150 to $200 billion of this is not even temporary as stimulus calls for. They are new permanent spending programs. The structural deficit of the bush years was about $350 billion of so. Now we will be making it $450 to $500 billion.
There is also the issue about can the US just endlessly borrow? The Keynsisn model makes this assumption. But will foreigners continue to keep buying trillions of dollars of debt as very low interest rates?
So what does this achieve from a macro economic standpoint? It isn’t even designed that well from a Keynesian standpoint. Keynesian leaning Harvard Economist Mankiw has written a lot about this lately and its worth a read. The supply siders say this is useless; they would want say a cut in the corporate tax or capital gains tax rates. Classical Economists and Austrians reject the whole theory. Monetarists wouldn’t be happy either. So what do we have? I personally don’t completely reject the Keynesian model, but I agree with most of the practical problems with it and see it as limited. And that used to be the consensus, as we haven’t done anything like this since the late 70’s. We would just let the Fed du its thing and stop the fiscal side. There are already what is called “automatic stabilizers” in the fiscal dies of things. As people make less money, because we have a graduated income tax, people automatically get tax cuts when they fall into lower brackets. Likewise on the spending side, unemployment benefits, welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and so on all naturally go up. Empirically too, this did not work too well in the depression despite what your history teacher told you. Even Krugman, the left leaning Keynesian admits that though he liked the New Deal for its long term effects, it did NOT get us out of the depression. We did this under Nixon, Ford and Carter.. it didn’t work. Japan also did this in the nineties in their “lost decade” and it didn’t work. They just have a debt now twice the size of ours as a percent of GDP. Furthermore, we haev already had large deficits over these last few years. Would these not have been stimulative already?
In reality, this is the politicians feeling like they have to do something and they are just using this crisis as an excuse to create new spending programs that they wanted all along anyway and they just deeming them “stimulus.” Obama's own team estimates that this will "creat or save 3.5 million jobs." If you do the math, and take about a $1 trillion bill and divide by 3.5 million jobs, thats $285,000 per job! Thats not a very good deal, even if this does stimulute the eocnomy somewhar. This thing was never about stimulus like I said; this is about spending in general. Plus you know this is going to be loaded with corruption and favoritism.
We will see what happens, but I remain very skeptical about this. It stinks in theory and it stinks in application. So I hope this was interesting/ helpful for you guys. Now I actually have to go some work and I appoligize for all the typos and spelling mistakes that are pretty much guaranteed in here.
-EJB
P.S. Keep in mind that this entire discussion is about the short term effects to the business cycle; not about the long term growth of the economy.
To lay it out upfront, I have been quite torn on various aspects of this as far as its economic benefit. And this is not uncommon in the economics field. Despite the political rhetoric of this being the vast “consensus,” this topic has literally been as the core of argument over academic economic debate for 70 years now, and from an intellectual perspective, this has been very interesting for me to witness in the making. In the end though, I remain skeptical.
So first, the argument in the theoretical world.
So, this stimulus package is based on a model of textbook Keynesian stimulatory fiscal policy that is at the core of any college students into Macro Econ class. So here is how it works. I’m hoping you all have a general concept of the supply and demand chart with the two crossing lines (that will make this easier). If you don’t go here. For those of you who have taken some econ or have read enough, I’m sorry to bore you on this first part.
So… the aggregate demand curve (the total demand in the entire economy) is made up of various components. The equation looks like this:
Y = C + I +G +X
Where: Y= total demand/ output of the economy (GDP)
C= consumer spending
I = Private investment spending
G= Government spending
X = net-exports
So in an economy, during a recession, C and/ or I temporarily falls (why this happens is another huge debate in economics, which I won’t go into here), resulting in lower total output Y. So according to Keynesian theory, in order to buffer the fall, government can take a deficit and either cut taxes, which will increase C and I or increase spending which will increase G. Either way, this increases total output Y (on the supply and demand graph, this shifts D to the right). Notice, the key here is not just spending as the news often seems to imply. What's important is that government takes a deficit, because if it raises taxes to pay for spending, any increase in G will be countered by decreases in C and/ or I. This is why even Obama’s Keynesian advisors are telling him not to repeal the Bush tax cuts right now. After this initial jolt that “primes the pump”, the private sector will now stop its downward spiral and resume its path or growth, where the government will then take surpluses to pay off the deficits from before. How big this chain reaction is depends on what is called the “Keyensian multiplier” which is a center of huge contention, debate and empirical work on exactly how big it is or isn’t. According to Keynesian theory, the government can continue to spend and increase output, until the economy has reached what is called full employment, at which time any new increase has to come at the expense of existing output and more spending only causes inflation. So this is essentially the basic Keynesian stimulus theory.
Now this is only true if you buy this theory. Classical/ Neoclassical economists and Austrian economists both reject this model. They say that government cannot increase output, because the government does not actually create anything, it only redistributes resources. The logic is, in order for government to spend, it must either raise taxes (which defeats the whole purpose of the stimulus even for Keynesians), print money (causing inflation) or borrow money (which the Keynesians argue for). The problem is this money isn’t just sitting there. Unless the government is borrowing money from people who otherwise would have put it under their mattress, the government is taking money out of the I component. It must take money out of the capital markets that would have gone to private investment and therefore any increase in G (or C by tax cuts), would be offset by decreased I, as interest rates rise due to government “crowding out” financial capital. So these schools say all stimulus does it cause deficits and reorder resources. A decent layman’s video (Yes, I’m talking to you Jeff), can be seen here.
Monetarists like Friedman (who's the man by the way for other reasons outside his economic work), don’t completely reject the Keynesian model, but they don’t see it like they do. As mentioned before a Keynesian thinks government can continue to spend and have a positive effect until full employment is reached. Monetarists though don’t see that as simple because it is impossible to target this spending all at just the idle resources, and therefore on the spending side, it just transfers resources that would have been used anyway already. Furthermore, any borrowing drives up interest rates and this creates a drag. The result is inflation. It was this realization in the 70's stagfaltion era that busted the Phillips Curve and the Keynesians had to respond and they altered their assumptions and became Neo-Keynesians for this issue and others. If you want to see a pretty good 5 minute video, watch here. So, because of this even Obama’s own Council of Economic Advisors estimates that the plan will spend about 7% of GDP in order to produce about 3.2% more output. Over half therefore is not new output, but just shifting output from one use to another. Therefore Monetarists generally reject using fiscal stimulus and instead focus on monetary policy via the fed (they also have different assumptions about the business cycle and see itself correcting as long the monetary policy is correct, unlike Keynesians who see the economy potentially falling into a trap less there be exogenous support). Monetarists also have a fundimentally different view of "full employment" vs "natural employment" as well as what type of monetary policy the Fed should do. If your interested read the Monetarist link.
Supply Side Economics (the actual theory, not the bastardized political version of the term), says that even tax cuts in general do not work, because what is important are the incentive forces for supplying the factors of production (labor and investment capital). So they are primarily interested in moving the supply curve (and hence the name of this quasi school), as opposed to the Keynesians who are primarily focused on the demand curve. So they want reductions in the marginal rates of taxes so that it changes behavior of workers and investors. By doing this the marginal benefit of working an addition hour of labor or investing more in a stock goes up while the cost remains the same, so more of it will happen. This concept is where the laffer curve comes from. So they would say that the types of demand style tax cuts that kenysisns prefer like mailing out a check are worthless.
There is also an issue of how strong what is called the Ricardo-Barro effect is, which is essentially, when government takes deficits, people increase their savings due to anticipating higher future taxes in order to pay off the debt. This then partially negates the increase of any stimulus, because people will increase savings as a result of it. (Barro himself, currently at Harvard whote int he WSJ recently attacking the stimulus plan),
So that’s the basic theory. Now the practical problems. Lets assume the Keynesian model is essentially correct. Well here’s where the stimulus bill goes bad even under the theoretical assumptions it was based on.
As was stated, Y can be stimulated by either tax cuts or government spending. Well first tax cuts. One of Friedman’s major contributions was finding out that people generally make spending decisions based on long term expectations of income. If you temporarily have a windfall, you will save most of it. If you temporarily have a shortfall, you will take debt and/ or tap savings. This is why the stimulus package of last spring didn’t do much. Income went up much higher then spending and people saved about 2/3 of it according to the government economic statistics. Most economists now accept this and demand side tax cuts are generally looked down upon as being effective. However, they have an advantage. They can be implemented very quickly. So we still do these, like the rebate checks of last spring and part of the new package. The savings effect is attempted to be minimized by targeting the checks at people most likely to spend them, mainly lower income or unemployed people. So things like food stamps and increased unemployment benefits are generally seen as the most bang for the buck as well and not actual middle class tax cuts.
So that leaves spending. Well the problem here is the time delay. The Congressional Budget Office (before they were strong armed by the congressional dems to take down their estimate from their website, estimated that only about $30 billion of the roughly $350 billion of spending in this bill would actually be spent in the 2009 fiscal year. This is because even “shovel ready” projects take a long time to get going. So this defeats the whole purpose. Even Keynes himself acknowledged this and said in his latter years in 1942 (his famous book was in 1936):
“Organized public works, at home and abroad, may be the right cure for a chronic tendency to a deficiency of effective demand. But they are not capable of sufficiently rapid organization (and above all cannot be reversed or undone at a later date), to be the most serviceable instrument for the prevention of the trade cycle.”
Furthermore, a more advanced look at the Keynesian model states that government stimulus should be targeted at the areas in which there are the most unemployed and idle capital. In the present case, that would be construction workers, manufacturing, mortgage finance and so on and all their supply chains. Because people just cant be retrained overnight (you can’t take a laid of construction worker and make him a doctor), if you focus the stimulus in areas that are for the most part fully employed, all you are going to do is shift resources like I had explained earlier. So that’s another major problem with this bill. The whole bill is about $900 billion. The vast majority does not target these unemployed areas. $325 billion is for education, healthcare, and clean energy (or aide to state governments to keep their programs in this area). These are all sectors with very little unemployment right now and are really the only ones that are currently growing. So any spending here will just divert an already employed person in the private sector to the government driven projects, with higher wages or course as demand goes up. About $275 billion is for demand style tax rebates which I discussed are of minimal use (unless they are made permanent and consumers begin to perceive them as such), about $69 billion is for upper middle class tax cuts via patching the alternative minimum tax again. Only about $180 billion is directly targeting areas of poorer people that will likely spend it as this is for things like food stamps and unemployment insurance. But even some of this is for Medicaid which will just transfer resources. Only about $30 billion or so is actually for new bridges, roads and so on, which is what we think this bill is about when we hear it in the news. And then there is $10 billion so in random business expensing rules with their taxes and so on. Furthermore, somewhere around $150 to $200 billion of this is not even temporary as stimulus calls for. They are new permanent spending programs. The structural deficit of the bush years was about $350 billion of so. Now we will be making it $450 to $500 billion.
There is also the issue about can the US just endlessly borrow? The Keynsisn model makes this assumption. But will foreigners continue to keep buying trillions of dollars of debt as very low interest rates?
So what does this achieve from a macro economic standpoint? It isn’t even designed that well from a Keynesian standpoint. Keynesian leaning Harvard Economist Mankiw has written a lot about this lately and its worth a read. The supply siders say this is useless; they would want say a cut in the corporate tax or capital gains tax rates. Classical Economists and Austrians reject the whole theory. Monetarists wouldn’t be happy either. So what do we have? I personally don’t completely reject the Keynesian model, but I agree with most of the practical problems with it and see it as limited. And that used to be the consensus, as we haven’t done anything like this since the late 70’s. We would just let the Fed du its thing and stop the fiscal side. There are already what is called “automatic stabilizers” in the fiscal dies of things. As people make less money, because we have a graduated income tax, people automatically get tax cuts when they fall into lower brackets. Likewise on the spending side, unemployment benefits, welfare, food stamps, Medicaid and so on all naturally go up. Empirically too, this did not work too well in the depression despite what your history teacher told you. Even Krugman, the left leaning Keynesian admits that though he liked the New Deal for its long term effects, it did NOT get us out of the depression. We did this under Nixon, Ford and Carter.. it didn’t work. Japan also did this in the nineties in their “lost decade” and it didn’t work. They just have a debt now twice the size of ours as a percent of GDP. Furthermore, we haev already had large deficits over these last few years. Would these not have been stimulative already?
In reality, this is the politicians feeling like they have to do something and they are just using this crisis as an excuse to create new spending programs that they wanted all along anyway and they just deeming them “stimulus.” Obama's own team estimates that this will "creat or save 3.5 million jobs." If you do the math, and take about a $1 trillion bill and divide by 3.5 million jobs, thats $285,000 per job! Thats not a very good deal, even if this does stimulute the eocnomy somewhar. This thing was never about stimulus like I said; this is about spending in general. Plus you know this is going to be loaded with corruption and favoritism.
We will see what happens, but I remain very skeptical about this. It stinks in theory and it stinks in application. So I hope this was interesting/ helpful for you guys. Now I actually have to go some work and I appoligize for all the typos and spelling mistakes that are pretty much guaranteed in here.
-EJB
P.S. Keep in mind that this entire discussion is about the short term effects to the business cycle; not about the long term growth of the economy.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
CHANGE!
I want to say congratulations to now President (no longer President-elect) Barack Obama. I look forward to see what the Obama administration has to offer the citizens of the United States.
What I haven't like though, are these allusions and comparisons to past Presidents, namely Abraham Lincoln and to a lesser extent Thomas Jefferson. Obama and Lincoln have only a few things in common: 1.) they are both from Illinois, 2.) they both were elected President of the United States, 3.) they were sworn in using the same Bible, and 4.) they were both over 6' tall. Outside of that, not a whole lot in common. Some pundits have made overly strong comparisons, saying Obama is in the tradition of Lincoln and Jefferson.
Barack Obama is no Abe Lincoln. He is no Thomas Jefferson. Lincoln become Lincoln after what Lincoln did, what he went through, the decisions he made and the results thereafter. (Oh yeah, then he got shot in the back of the head which helps to cement a legacy of martyrdom.) Jefferson became Jefferson by helping to lead a fledgling, ragtag group of states through a revolution, the Revolution, and to help shape the documents used to govern the country that emerged from the Revolution.
The challenges Obama is facing is nothing like what those men faced or had to deal with. Will he be compared to Lincoln or Jefferson in history? Is a comparison valid? We will have to wait and see in 4 - 8 years. He will either be the next FDR or the next Jimmy Carter (both of whom are despised by Bresh).
All I am saying is to give the guy a chance. If I can't criticize him yet because he hasn't been in office, then you really can't praise him (at least to that extent) because he hasn't done anything. To all the crazy Obama fans, lets see what happens.
What I haven't like though, are these allusions and comparisons to past Presidents, namely Abraham Lincoln and to a lesser extent Thomas Jefferson. Obama and Lincoln have only a few things in common: 1.) they are both from Illinois, 2.) they both were elected President of the United States, 3.) they were sworn in using the same Bible, and 4.) they were both over 6' tall. Outside of that, not a whole lot in common. Some pundits have made overly strong comparisons, saying Obama is in the tradition of Lincoln and Jefferson.
Barack Obama is no Abe Lincoln. He is no Thomas Jefferson. Lincoln become Lincoln after what Lincoln did, what he went through, the decisions he made and the results thereafter. (Oh yeah, then he got shot in the back of the head which helps to cement a legacy of martyrdom.) Jefferson became Jefferson by helping to lead a fledgling, ragtag group of states through a revolution, the Revolution, and to help shape the documents used to govern the country that emerged from the Revolution.
The challenges Obama is facing is nothing like what those men faced or had to deal with. Will he be compared to Lincoln or Jefferson in history? Is a comparison valid? We will have to wait and see in 4 - 8 years. He will either be the next FDR or the next Jimmy Carter (both of whom are despised by Bresh).
All I am saying is to give the guy a chance. If I can't criticize him yet because he hasn't been in office, then you really can't praise him (at least to that extent) because he hasn't done anything. To all the crazy Obama fans, lets see what happens.
Friday, January 2, 2009
BTW Jeff
I meant to say this a while ago, but Jeff, good job at dealing with the nay-sayer that posted that comment on your guys' blog. You know, the one about how the "ThinkingHeads" title was misleading. I read your response and said to myself, there is 2 years of APDA and more importantly 2 years of Fordham Law paying off. You laid the verbal smackdown on that guy. Good form, sir, good form.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Some General Comments
I hope everyone veiwing/writing this blog has has a safe, healthy, happy holiday season. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Joyous Kwanzaa. I wish you everything you wished yourself this year.
I find myself looking to get back into playing Poker on a more regular basis, which I didn't do over the past 2 - 3 years. BTW, Jeff, I purchased Gus Hansen's book and I plan to read it very soon; it looks really interesting.
Is there going to be a PC Dino tourney coming up in the 2009 season? I am hankering for a good debate. I already have a team name set. Get at me.
Hope to hear from everyone soon. Hope you all have plans for New Year's Eve. If not and you would like to see me, give me a call.
I find myself looking to get back into playing Poker on a more regular basis, which I didn't do over the past 2 - 3 years. BTW, Jeff, I purchased Gus Hansen's book and I plan to read it very soon; it looks really interesting.
Is there going to be a PC Dino tourney coming up in the 2009 season? I am hankering for a good debate. I already have a team name set. Get at me.
Hope to hear from everyone soon. Hope you all have plans for New Year's Eve. If not and you would like to see me, give me a call.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Justice Alito Recognizes the Futility of Originalism
Alito discussing the change in music overheard within the halls of the Supreme Court:
Here's the article.
Emphasis added. Exactly, Justice Alito! Now just carry that truth right on over to your method of statutory/constitutional interpretation...Alito also described change at the Supreme Court musically.
The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist favored standards and light opera. His successor, John Roberts, became the first justice to quote Bob Dylan in a Supreme Court opinion issued earlier this year, Alito said.
"In the space of a generation, we have gone from Irving Berlin to Bob Dylan," he said. "These are the evolving standards of a maturing society."
As for his own musical tastes, Alito said little, although he used song lyrics from James Taylor, Dylan and the Rolling Stones in his talk.
He conceded that as a high school student on New Year's Eve 1967, he sat at home and watched on television as Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians performed at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. Alito said his parents liked the annual program.
Here's the article.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Autonomy and Authority
I think one of the most interesting yet ignored questions of political philosophy - and indeed, even moral or ethical philosophy - is the justification of authority. Any authority - governmental, familial, societal, individual, etc. If we as a species agree that moral autonomy - that is, the idea that we are perfectly free in being able to choose for ourselves our own path and make entirely and radically free decisions in our lives - is a virtue, then how can we ever seriously consider that authority is justified? Soper tells us it is through deference. Kant or Locke might argue it is through consent. Dworkin would have us believe that these moral obligations precede our very existence. But none of these solutions are adequate, when one spends even a small amount of time thinking about them. Deference doesn't solve the problem because it is merely a bending of one's will to the will of another. The fact that we choose to defer does not cover up the truth that, had we not been pressured into deferring, we would have chosen a different option. Consent cannot justify authority, either - for what if someone today were to consent to some authority which wished to enslave the consenter? Would the newly consented slave and slave-master be justified in their slavery merely because there is some contract between them? Of course not. And finally, the laughable idea that obligations pre-exist our very being. Pray tell where these obligations arise from. God? Particles? Natural law? Or are they merely self-evident - knowing full well that "self-evidence" is a content-less notion which the proposer could never hope to prove.
This question has always fascinated me...mainly because I've always felt that there was something wrong with the idea of authority - and I don't deal well with authority. Parental authority, educational authority, governmental authority...why are we so willing to submit ourselves and our free will to the will of others? Are we ever justified in so doing? If we truly value autonomy - unbridled autonomy - how could we lower ourselves in such ways? Perhaps we could say that authority is justified because a society without authority would be a bad place to live. But are we so quick to jump on the Bentham bandwagon? Haven't we already learned that ends don't justify means? Isn't there a strong reductio ad absurdem problem in utilitarian arguments?
This leaves but two solutions: the first being authority is justified because the one claiming authority is the more powerful entity. It's the government as gunman writ large. It's the big kid on the block getting his way. It smacks of some truth. But the perceptible truth of this type of positivism does not lead to the conclusion that it is JUSTIFIED. There are many true things which are not justifiable - let us not conflate those words.
The second option, of course, is political anarchy. To this point, I've been unwilling to accept the possibility that this philosophy was even valid on its face. Anarchism is a loaded word...and anyone facing off against it can easily drum up hypothetical examples of the horrors it could lead to. Perhaps. But again, we can't let the ends justify the means. We can't simply discard a philosophy simply because we don't like its conclusions. It may be that authority is NEVER justifiable.
To that end, I link to this paper by Columbia University professor of philosophy Robert Paul Wolff. His conclusions (that autonomy and authority are forever locked in antithetical battle) are the starting point for many political and moral philosophers (Nozick, Dworkin, Finnis, Soper, George, Raz...the list could go on ad infinitem). Take a second to read it and keep an open mind. See if you can't dislodge yourself from your (inevitable) Lockean background beliefs and seriously critique (or, at least, analyze) those ideas. Even if it doesn't change your mind, it's still an interesting discussion.
~JSK
This question has always fascinated me...mainly because I've always felt that there was something wrong with the idea of authority - and I don't deal well with authority. Parental authority, educational authority, governmental authority...why are we so willing to submit ourselves and our free will to the will of others? Are we ever justified in so doing? If we truly value autonomy - unbridled autonomy - how could we lower ourselves in such ways? Perhaps we could say that authority is justified because a society without authority would be a bad place to live. But are we so quick to jump on the Bentham bandwagon? Haven't we already learned that ends don't justify means? Isn't there a strong reductio ad absurdem problem in utilitarian arguments?
This leaves but two solutions: the first being authority is justified because the one claiming authority is the more powerful entity. It's the government as gunman writ large. It's the big kid on the block getting his way. It smacks of some truth. But the perceptible truth of this type of positivism does not lead to the conclusion that it is JUSTIFIED. There are many true things which are not justifiable - let us not conflate those words.
The second option, of course, is political anarchy. To this point, I've been unwilling to accept the possibility that this philosophy was even valid on its face. Anarchism is a loaded word...and anyone facing off against it can easily drum up hypothetical examples of the horrors it could lead to. Perhaps. But again, we can't let the ends justify the means. We can't simply discard a philosophy simply because we don't like its conclusions. It may be that authority is NEVER justifiable.
To that end, I link to this paper by Columbia University professor of philosophy Robert Paul Wolff. His conclusions (that autonomy and authority are forever locked in antithetical battle) are the starting point for many political and moral philosophers (Nozick, Dworkin, Finnis, Soper, George, Raz...the list could go on ad infinitem). Take a second to read it and keep an open mind. See if you can't dislodge yourself from your (inevitable) Lockean background beliefs and seriously critique (or, at least, analyze) those ideas. Even if it doesn't change your mind, it's still an interesting discussion.
~JSK
Friday, November 21, 2008
My new blog
Enjoy.
______________________________________________
I feel like there's some sort of unfair business practice action sprouting here against you, NTC. Using a blogspot blog to advertise your new wordpress blog; it seems like blogger would frown on actions like that. All kidding aside, was there some sort of non-competition click-wrap clause/contract you had to sign to become a Blogspot writer? I can't remember doing one myself but it wouldn't surprise me if one existed.
~JSK
Oh also, I enjoy your site. Especially the part where you posted and wrote about stuff and things. You know that part? It was the best.
______________________________________________
I feel like there's some sort of unfair business practice action sprouting here against you, NTC. Using a blogspot blog to advertise your new wordpress blog; it seems like blogger would frown on actions like that. All kidding aside, was there some sort of non-competition click-wrap clause/contract you had to sign to become a Blogspot writer? I can't remember doing one myself but it wouldn't surprise me if one existed.
~JSK
Oh also, I enjoy your site. Especially the part where you posted and wrote about stuff and things. You know that part? It was the best.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
WTF
Dustin Pedoia won the AL MVP. Total BS [screw you, Eric]. How on earth did he win out over Quentin or Hamilton? I don't like. I don't agree with it. GOD! 16 first place votes! There were 16 people who thought Dustin Pedroia was the best, most valuable player in the majors?
What really grinds my gears is this AL MVP contrasted with 2006. If Jeter didn't win in '06 then Pedroia should not have won this season. I know you people will defend Pedroia but the whole in my heart has been made just that much bigger.
_______________________________________________________
I was just talking about this with my roommate. The Boston bias in this league is unbelievable. Dustin Effing Pedroia? Are you kidding me? By what criteria did they decide this one? Gutsy-ness? Heart? He who most looks like a squirrel?? Let's look at the real numbers:
VORP:
1)A-Rod
2)Sizemore
3)Pedroia
OBP (min 200 plate appearances):
1)Teixeira
2)Bradley
3)Mauer
9)A-Rod
19)Pedroia
PMLVr (min 200 PAs):
1)Teixeira
2)Bradley
5)A-Rod
15)Pedroia
How does A-Rod or Tex not win this? A-Rod because his horrible team didn't make the playoffs? Tex because...?
Ridiculous.
~JSK
What really grinds my gears is this AL MVP contrasted with 2006. If Jeter didn't win in '06 then Pedroia should not have won this season. I know you people will defend Pedroia but the whole in my heart has been made just that much bigger.
_______________________________________________________
I was just talking about this with my roommate. The Boston bias in this league is unbelievable. Dustin Effing Pedroia? Are you kidding me? By what criteria did they decide this one? Gutsy-ness? Heart? He who most looks like a squirrel?? Let's look at the real numbers:
VORP:
1)A-Rod
2)Sizemore
3)Pedroia
OBP (min 200 plate appearances):
1)Teixeira
2)Bradley
3)Mauer
9)A-Rod
19)Pedroia
PMLVr (min 200 PAs):
1)Teixeira
2)Bradley
5)A-Rod
15)Pedroia
How does A-Rod or Tex not win this? A-Rod because his horrible team didn't make the playoffs? Tex because...?
Ridiculous.
~JSK
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Wednesday Night, 'round 9pm
I would just like to point out that, at this very moment (a few minutes before 9pm on a Wednesday night) I am simultaneously engaged in a text-conversation with Rob about soft and hard legal positivism, natural law legal theory versus natural law moral theory and the differences between Thomistic legal theory, Dworkin's jurisprudence and HLA Hart's positivism AND an email conversation with EJB about the inelasticity of income demand of beer.
Does this make me a cool person or THE coolest person?
I leave that to you.
~JSK
Does this make me a cool person or THE coolest person?
I leave that to you.
~JSK
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Election by Rob Hanson
I need to say this, as this has been bothering me. I can't stand Obama; I am not particularly fond of McCain. Just not. Why is it that every four years the choices for president seem to be getting worse and worse, like someone is watering down the gene pool for potential presidents? Every generation gets a little bit dumber and a little bit crappier. Not once have I voted for someone who I could really get behind completely. Some days I think I need to run, or at the very least write myself in on the ballot.
-On one hand [probably my left] I have Barack Obama. I dislike him; I distrust him; I really have no desire to see him holding the most powerful executive office in this country with the potential for a Democrat super-majority backing him. He's a little too pink for my liking. If he gets elected [which he will] and I can pretty much expect him to enact whatever he feels like, such as his thinly veiled socialist ideas. And don't tell me they aren't. Don't lie to me. It's Ok. Just admit it. Just call a spade a spade [if it walks like a duck, etc]. Don't tell me tax credits are tax cuts. Don't tell me the lowest tax payers get screwed cause the current lowest 33% of tax payers get all of their income taxes back and that number's going up to 44% who end up paying nothing to the fed. Looking to take from business as much as possible then giving that money to people who don't contribute to government is socialism.
I know what some of you will say:
"But, Rob."
"Yes, Kyle?"
"People will still pay into the payroll tax for social security."
To which I respond that those same people who will be paying no federal income tax will be the ones Obama is giving these tax credits to. So they pay no income tax, end up paying nothing into social security and reap all the benefit. That is socialism. Didn't this country spend the better part of the second half of the 20th Century fighting against socialism and Communism? Weren't we the predominate world power during that time with our capitalism and our individualistic society? Yeah, capitalism's been an abject failure.
-McCain ain't hot shit either. Old fart. Great campaign, asshole. Way to pander to the religious right and social conservatives. Didn't our parents tell us when we were kids to be ourselves? And yet somehow McCain forgot that and decided to play the game and spin the wheel! Idiot. Great, I either get a socialist or a geriatric. Dunno, I might feel better with the old guy with skin cancer. Until he croaks and I get Sarah Palin, someone with as much qualification as Barack Obama. Awesome, I am damned if I do and damned if I don't.
-But that is not what I originally started this post for. The above was just a tirade, a tangent. What I really have to get off my chest is this celebrity. This American Idol fan fest, mainly for Obama [but McCain has done some as well]. What do I mean by this? All the magazine covers that Obama is on. GQ, Men's Vogue, Men's Fitness. Going on Late Nite or the Tonight Show. Michelle Obama going on the Tonight Show, going on the Food Network. Obama going to Germany and giving a speech to a quarter millions Germans [I really don't care which candidate Europe prefers]. Even McCain was on the cover of People Magazine. I really don't value the political opinion of Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone. I don't. I know he is entitled to his opinions and he is can express them whenever he wants. I just don't want to find political commentary in the magazine I bought to read about music. I don't. If I wanted read about the debates or the candidates I will purchase a copy of the New Republic or the Economist. I am not voting for these people based on their morning routine for keeping in shape or where they shop, or what their favorite recipe of brownie is. I don't need to know that and I don't want to know that. I need to know what a particular candidate thinks on a particular set of issues. Every time I see one of those two on a magazine cover, I let loose a little internal scream.
- People treat Obama like some goddamn messiah. He's Will Smith and Justin Timberlake put together. To all you Obama supporters out there, on a scale of 1 to 10 [10 being your grandma, 1 being guy who pissed in your coffee] how much do you love Barack Obama? Or do you call him Barry? Are you on a first name basis [Just like Trudy Raizen and Dave]? Do you invite Barry over in your own little world for tea and biscuits? Do your pants tighten in anticipation of an Obama presidency? Do you realize that he favors socialist policies? If you are Ok with that, just tell me. Just say, "Yes, Rob, I know this and want those kind of changes," and we can move on.
-This is possibly just bias, but it feels to me Democrats put all their candidates on some damn pedestal, lifting them to mythic proportions. It's gotten more and more in my recent memory. Clinton was loved and adored. Al Gore was going to be the savior for the environment. Jon Kerry was supposed to be the savior from George Bush. Barack Obama is going to be the savior from capitalism and a greedy Wall Street [GO MAIN STREET!]. It's this all or nothing attitude that Democrats seem to have about eeeeeeveryting. Everything. Republicans and conservatives are evil and killing this country and are stupid and unelightened and poopy-heads. I have had this discussion with my girlfriend and we agree. Conservatives generally think liberals are misguided and need correction. Liberals think conservatives are evil-minded bigots who are killing the planet. Democrats, liberals, please stop, relax, breathe and take a chill-pill. If Jon McCain is elected the sky will not fall, the earth will not stand still. Will he do a good job? That is debatable. Yes, Rob, I believe John McCain is the inferior choice for president and Mr Obama is the right man for the job. I prefer his health plan and his view on the Iraq war. That's what you need to say to me, not: "If you vote for McCain you are a fascist pig who loves big business and thinks that poor people should just die and you are a racist." [I can't wait for someone to call me of that.]
- I could say more, but I won't. Thank God I am in a Blue state so I am released to vote for Bob Barr.
___________________________________________________________________
Alright, former debate partner, let's get down to this. I will say that I generally agree with your overall idea. I do tend to think that political commentators today are way too quick to fall into the "false dichotomy" trap of liberal vs. conservative. If anything, the sheer amount of "undecided" and "centrist" voters in this election should give testament to that fact. People are tired of party hacks and vitriol. This is also evidenced by your somewhat-ranting tone. It's not too hard to see that you're pretty fed up with the system...and liberals, I guess.
I'll say this, I'm not a fan of Obama either. I'm not voting for him. Hell, I'm not voting for anyone - as I explained in my last post. Neither of these candidates deserves to lead the free world - and by the time his term is over, I doubt the position will even be able to be accurately described in that way.
But I do find it funny that you spend a great deal of time lambasting liberals for their "all or nothing" attitude, their (apparently group-wide?) belief that conservatives are evil and their zeal for their candidate (which you find overbearing) - and then turn around and essentially rant for three paragraphs about how Obama is an evil pinko celebrity. All while telling liberals to "relax, breathe and take a chill pill." The double standard there cannot go unnoticed.
I'd also call into question your seemingly rash generalizations about liberals. For instance...I'm pretty liberal, but I don't think conservatives are "killing the planet." Perhaps your tendency to equate liberals with environmentalists stems from some personal relationships you have (Hi Ashley!). I will say this, though, about your cultural "celebrity" claims - I find it pretty frightening too. But I think your focus purely on Obama is telling of the fact that you're a conservative. Yes, many liberals are getting unbelievably wacky about this dude...calling him a savior and comparing him to the great President's of our country's history. But have you watched McCain rallies? Or even worse, Palin rallies? The cult of the hockey mom is just as ridiculous as those who glorify Mr. Obama. The Presidency is no longer a position won by the most qualified candidate. It is won by the most photogenic, the most dashing, the one with a certain je ne sais quoi. The election is a popularity contest writ large, undoubtedly. And this is indeed scary.
As for all this socialism nonsense - some things need to be said here. First off, the term "socialist" has been used so unbelievably pejoratively that even people who hold some socialist beliefs are afraid to voice them, for fear of being labeled a communist. These two things are not the same, and you fall into that trap when you mention that we fought "socialism and communism" for all those years. I assume you mean the USSR, which was not socialist - it was communist. In fact, we had many socialist allies during WWII (and I guess a communist ally since technically we were friends with Stalin). So I suggest that we need to ditch this unhelpful and often-times misunderstood terminology. I wouldn't call Obama's plans socialist, per se. They're simply more liberal. Then again, even THAT term has come under fire and is generally thought to have negative connotations attached. Obama does want to increase the power of the government to aid those who the free market has abandoned. He does not, however, want to increase government intrusions into personal freedoms or strip citizens of civil rights...no, we'll leave that to the Republicans who, like their latest 2 term President, seem to claim they like small government but then take any chance they can get to increase governmental power to absurd levels. But that's just the thing, isn't it? You'd be hardpressed to find a repub or a conservative who will claim to actually like Bush. Their abandonment of Bush is just like the Dem's denying their socialist tendencies. They say, yeah we like the general political idea of the party...just don't equate us with that one aspect of it...we don't like that part. So how come the GOP can get away with it but liberals can't?
In closing, I'd like to say that Rob is awesome - let nobody who reads this come to believe that my disagreement with the man has anything to do with me disliking him personally. It just so happens that we disagree on a few politically relevant topics. I too recognize that the Presidential race has turned into a popularity contest and it is deplorable...not to mention unbearable. Like Rob, I also recognize the problems with sweeping generalizations about liberals and conservatives. We cannot hope to mitigate the damages of polarizing politics until we get rid of these pre-conceived notions about the people we disagree with politically. It just seems that Rob's advice to "chill out" would best be aimed at ALL political malcontents...not simply those who lean left.
Finally, and most importantly - Rob, you are a racist.
~JSK
-On one hand [probably my left] I have Barack Obama. I dislike him; I distrust him; I really have no desire to see him holding the most powerful executive office in this country with the potential for a Democrat super-majority backing him. He's a little too pink for my liking. If he gets elected [which he will] and I can pretty much expect him to enact whatever he feels like, such as his thinly veiled socialist ideas. And don't tell me they aren't. Don't lie to me. It's Ok. Just admit it. Just call a spade a spade [if it walks like a duck, etc]. Don't tell me tax credits are tax cuts. Don't tell me the lowest tax payers get screwed cause the current lowest 33% of tax payers get all of their income taxes back and that number's going up to 44% who end up paying nothing to the fed. Looking to take from business as much as possible then giving that money to people who don't contribute to government is socialism.
I know what some of you will say:
"But, Rob."
"Yes, Kyle?"
"People will still pay into the payroll tax for social security."
To which I respond that those same people who will be paying no federal income tax will be the ones Obama is giving these tax credits to. So they pay no income tax, end up paying nothing into social security and reap all the benefit. That is socialism. Didn't this country spend the better part of the second half of the 20th Century fighting against socialism and Communism? Weren't we the predominate world power during that time with our capitalism and our individualistic society? Yeah, capitalism's been an abject failure.
-McCain ain't hot shit either. Old fart. Great campaign, asshole. Way to pander to the religious right and social conservatives. Didn't our parents tell us when we were kids to be ourselves? And yet somehow McCain forgot that and decided to play the game and spin the wheel! Idiot. Great, I either get a socialist or a geriatric. Dunno, I might feel better with the old guy with skin cancer. Until he croaks and I get Sarah Palin, someone with as much qualification as Barack Obama. Awesome, I am damned if I do and damned if I don't.
-But that is not what I originally started this post for. The above was just a tirade, a tangent. What I really have to get off my chest is this celebrity. This American Idol fan fest, mainly for Obama [but McCain has done some as well]. What do I mean by this? All the magazine covers that Obama is on. GQ, Men's Vogue, Men's Fitness. Going on Late Nite or the Tonight Show. Michelle Obama going on the Tonight Show, going on the Food Network. Obama going to Germany and giving a speech to a quarter millions Germans [I really don't care which candidate Europe prefers]. Even McCain was on the cover of People Magazine. I really don't value the political opinion of Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone. I don't. I know he is entitled to his opinions and he is can express them whenever he wants. I just don't want to find political commentary in the magazine I bought to read about music. I don't. If I wanted read about the debates or the candidates I will purchase a copy of the New Republic or the Economist. I am not voting for these people based on their morning routine for keeping in shape or where they shop, or what their favorite recipe of brownie is. I don't need to know that and I don't want to know that. I need to know what a particular candidate thinks on a particular set of issues. Every time I see one of those two on a magazine cover, I let loose a little internal scream.
- People treat Obama like some goddamn messiah. He's Will Smith and Justin Timberlake put together. To all you Obama supporters out there, on a scale of 1 to 10 [10 being your grandma, 1 being guy who pissed in your coffee] how much do you love Barack Obama? Or do you call him Barry? Are you on a first name basis [Just like Trudy Raizen and Dave]? Do you invite Barry over in your own little world for tea and biscuits? Do your pants tighten in anticipation of an Obama presidency? Do you realize that he favors socialist policies? If you are Ok with that, just tell me. Just say, "Yes, Rob, I know this and want those kind of changes," and we can move on.
-This is possibly just bias, but it feels to me Democrats put all their candidates on some damn pedestal, lifting them to mythic proportions. It's gotten more and more in my recent memory. Clinton was loved and adored. Al Gore was going to be the savior for the environment. Jon Kerry was supposed to be the savior from George Bush. Barack Obama is going to be the savior from capitalism and a greedy Wall Street [GO MAIN STREET!]. It's this all or nothing attitude that Democrats seem to have about eeeeeeveryting. Everything. Republicans and conservatives are evil and killing this country and are stupid and unelightened and poopy-heads. I have had this discussion with my girlfriend and we agree. Conservatives generally think liberals are misguided and need correction. Liberals think conservatives are evil-minded bigots who are killing the planet. Democrats, liberals, please stop, relax, breathe and take a chill-pill. If Jon McCain is elected the sky will not fall, the earth will not stand still. Will he do a good job? That is debatable. Yes, Rob, I believe John McCain is the inferior choice for president and Mr Obama is the right man for the job. I prefer his health plan and his view on the Iraq war. That's what you need to say to me, not: "If you vote for McCain you are a fascist pig who loves big business and thinks that poor people should just die and you are a racist." [I can't wait for someone to call me of that.]
- I could say more, but I won't. Thank God I am in a Blue state so I am released to vote for Bob Barr.
___________________________________________________________________
Alright, former debate partner, let's get down to this. I will say that I generally agree with your overall idea. I do tend to think that political commentators today are way too quick to fall into the "false dichotomy" trap of liberal vs. conservative. If anything, the sheer amount of "undecided" and "centrist" voters in this election should give testament to that fact. People are tired of party hacks and vitriol. This is also evidenced by your somewhat-ranting tone. It's not too hard to see that you're pretty fed up with the system...and liberals, I guess.
I'll say this, I'm not a fan of Obama either. I'm not voting for him. Hell, I'm not voting for anyone - as I explained in my last post. Neither of these candidates deserves to lead the free world - and by the time his term is over, I doubt the position will even be able to be accurately described in that way.
But I do find it funny that you spend a great deal of time lambasting liberals for their "all or nothing" attitude, their (apparently group-wide?) belief that conservatives are evil and their zeal for their candidate (which you find overbearing) - and then turn around and essentially rant for three paragraphs about how Obama is an evil pinko celebrity. All while telling liberals to "relax, breathe and take a chill pill." The double standard there cannot go unnoticed.
I'd also call into question your seemingly rash generalizations about liberals. For instance...I'm pretty liberal, but I don't think conservatives are "killing the planet." Perhaps your tendency to equate liberals with environmentalists stems from some personal relationships you have (Hi Ashley!). I will say this, though, about your cultural "celebrity" claims - I find it pretty frightening too. But I think your focus purely on Obama is telling of the fact that you're a conservative. Yes, many liberals are getting unbelievably wacky about this dude...calling him a savior and comparing him to the great President's of our country's history. But have you watched McCain rallies? Or even worse, Palin rallies? The cult of the hockey mom is just as ridiculous as those who glorify Mr. Obama. The Presidency is no longer a position won by the most qualified candidate. It is won by the most photogenic, the most dashing, the one with a certain je ne sais quoi. The election is a popularity contest writ large, undoubtedly. And this is indeed scary.
As for all this socialism nonsense - some things need to be said here. First off, the term "socialist" has been used so unbelievably pejoratively that even people who hold some socialist beliefs are afraid to voice them, for fear of being labeled a communist. These two things are not the same, and you fall into that trap when you mention that we fought "socialism and communism" for all those years. I assume you mean the USSR, which was not socialist - it was communist. In fact, we had many socialist allies during WWII (and I guess a communist ally since technically we were friends with Stalin). So I suggest that we need to ditch this unhelpful and often-times misunderstood terminology. I wouldn't call Obama's plans socialist, per se. They're simply more liberal. Then again, even THAT term has come under fire and is generally thought to have negative connotations attached. Obama does want to increase the power of the government to aid those who the free market has abandoned. He does not, however, want to increase government intrusions into personal freedoms or strip citizens of civil rights...no, we'll leave that to the Republicans who, like their latest 2 term President, seem to claim they like small government but then take any chance they can get to increase governmental power to absurd levels. But that's just the thing, isn't it? You'd be hardpressed to find a repub or a conservative who will claim to actually like Bush. Their abandonment of Bush is just like the Dem's denying their socialist tendencies. They say, yeah we like the general political idea of the party...just don't equate us with that one aspect of it...we don't like that part. So how come the GOP can get away with it but liberals can't?
In closing, I'd like to say that Rob is awesome - let nobody who reads this come to believe that my disagreement with the man has anything to do with me disliking him personally. It just so happens that we disagree on a few politically relevant topics. I too recognize that the Presidential race has turned into a popularity contest and it is deplorable...not to mention unbearable. Like Rob, I also recognize the problems with sweeping generalizations about liberals and conservatives. We cannot hope to mitigate the damages of polarizing politics until we get rid of these pre-conceived notions about the people we disagree with politically. It just seems that Rob's advice to "chill out" would best be aimed at ALL political malcontents...not simply those who lean left.
Finally, and most importantly - Rob, you are a racist.
~JSK
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Indiana
Anybody all that familiar with the Hoosier state? I'm leaving for Indy tomorrow and will be there for a couple of weeks (figure it out). What can I expect in what will be my first real visit to Middle America?
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Barack Obama Proves Decentralization Works
Barack Obama's field operation has been getting a lot of buzz lately. I spent my summer working for a Congressional Campaign as our field director. My experiences working to organize volunteers and constituency groups makes Obama's campaign that much more amazing.
You can read about the structure of Obama's field organizing here. To sum a fantastic article up in pitifully too few words: The Obama campaign gave up hierarchical control over their field operation, and instead gave tremendous autonomy to field organizers and lead volunteers to run their operation. They set up neighborhood teams, covering about ten precincts, and allowed those teams to find their own way to achieve a vote goal in that area.
The Obama campaign has a textbook way of organizing each district, but that functions only as a tool to guide field organizers and team leaders, not to rigidly direct their actions. Organizers will modify the plan to suit their own district, or come up with new ways of doing things. They recruit team leaders, who recruit other leaders, who recruit other volunteers, who work to persuade, register, and turn out voters. The whole thing is organic.
I consider myself a libertarian for a lot of reasons. One is ideological - my belief that individuals have a human right to control their own social, political, and economic spheres. I believe that government's power should be limited simply because people never signed any sort of social contract, and therefore are forced into the system.
That's all fine and good in a political theory book. The real reason that I am a libertarian is I believe that it works. The key difference between liberals, conservatives, and libertarians is a belief in the power of a human person. Conservatives believe that humans are in effect powerless compared to all-powerful forces like the divine and tradition. They don't trust human beings to make decisions, and instead rest upon the decisions that have persisted throughout history. Liberals trust human beings, but just a few of them. They believe that the "goodest" and smartest people in the room should make decisions for everyone else, for their benefit. Both fear that individuals will choose the wrong option, and therefore will harm themselves and everyone else.
I have a faith in the human being as a decider, and so does Barack Obama's campaign. We both recognonize our own limitations (our inability to be God; to make the correct decision for others) and we both have faith in the ability of trusted to make that decision, provided that they are accountable for the result (our ability to recognize that human beings are powerful enough to overcome the need for a God to direct our actions) and with a common goal.
Markets are about a lack of control. As George Will says here, no one knows how to make a pencil. The person mining the graphite in a mine somewhere does not know where it is going, nor does the person producing the wood or the rubber, and the person putting it all together has no idea where it comes from. The market functions as its own healthy organism, powerful in its ability to adapt and innovate.
Barack Obama (or at least the people running his campaign) seems to get that. Its really difficult for someone to sacrifice control in order to achieve a better product: it seems like a tremendous risk. Ron Paul did it very poorly. Structure and accountability are important, but they are desigend to empower the individual, not to constrain him. I hope that President Obama (now just short of a certainty) learns this lesson when sets up his government. He cannot "manage" an economy, but rather he can assure its accountability and structure. He needs to both lose his faith in his own personal ability to make the correct decision all of the time, and have faith in the ability of others to do just that.
An interesting side question: What happens to this structure after the campaign ends? Where do all of this field organizers and volunteers go? This seems to me like a great opportunity for we as a society to rebuild our social capital and community organizations.
EJF
_______________________________________________________
Interesting post, EJF - and I generally agree with what I take to be your point, namely: Barack Obama should be a President who surrounds himself with accountable people whom he trusts to run things. He should not attempt to take on every issue individually. I think you take the decentralization of his campaign to be an analogy of this. But your post is also all over the place in terms of what you're trying to accomplish. You seem to argue (1)for decentralization, (2) for the rise of libertarianism, (3) for the philosophical superiority of libertarianism over conservatism and liberalism, (4) for atheism, (5) for increasing our trust in everybody, (6) for free markets and finally (7) for Obama to "lose his faith in his own personal ability to make the correct decision all of the time." I'm not sure what many of these have to do with your overall point, but I've a few problems with some things you said.
First, whenever one is faced with an argument from analogy (as we are here), it is important to consider whether the entities being compared are similar. This is where I take issue with what you've laid out. Yes, Obama's campaign operations are decentralized. But do you really believe that campaign operations are similar in nature to the daily/monthly/yearly operations of the various sectors of the American government? In other words, is a campaign organizer facing the same decisions and repercussions that the President of the United States is? Surely not. Obama as campaign leader is free to decentralize his operations because if something were to go wrong, he could simply fire whomever messed up and replace them with one more apt. Contrarily, Obama would have no such luxury as President (just look at the flack Bush Jr. took when he had to replace Alberto Gonzalez). Simply put, there is MUCH more on the line when you're directing an entire country's operations. Obama as President is, in an enormous way, more responsible for his failures or successes than Obama as campaign manager. Thus, while it may actually be the case that decentralization is a workable and successful model for a President to adopt, we surely could not prove that proposition by pointing to the successes of his campaign operations.
Second, I'm going to attack your definition of "libertarian." You claim that you are a libertarian because you believe "individuals have a human right to control their own political, social and economic spheres." (emphasis added) Perhaps your addition of the word "human" before "right" is an unintended argument, but couple this with your atheistic ramblings later in the post, and it seems to indicate that you are intentionally drawing a distinction between "human rights" and "natural rights." I will have you know that "natural rights" do not imply the existence of a God, and thus, as an agnostic myself, I can happily consider myself a natural law legal theorist. So where do your "human rights" come from? Who defines these rights? Every individual? Do I have a "human right" to use my property in such a way that it becomes a nuisance for my neighbors? Or does that "human right" interfere with their "human right" to be free from nuisances? Furthermore, your social contract theory would be a fantastic argument...if only contracts worked that way. You ignore the fact that consent plays a large role in social contract theory. Of course there is no literal contract wherein every citizen of the United States, from 1776 to 2009, signed the document and attested to every term within. The general idea is that, in a democratic republic, we have elected leaders who act on our behalf, who DID literally sign a contract (you may have heard of this thing called the Constitution). Now, your argument may be that, hey, I didn't vote for James Madison, so he can't really represent me...thus, because my ancestors signed the contract and not me, I'm not bound by it. This is also not how contracts work. First, I'd argue that we are, at the very least, third party beneficiaries to the Constitution, simply because the benefits and burdens of the contract passed to us. I would argue more directly, however, that we (citizens today) are a party to the social contract simply because we continuously assent and consent to the terms of the contract itself. Also, what does any of this have to do with your main argument? Why even bring up libertarianism? Don't Conservatives also argue for decentralization?
Which brings me to my next point, what is this junk about the differing views of liberals, conservatives and libertarians regarding human nature? Where are you getting this? Personal experience? Can't be, unless you've completely ignored all of your empirical data. Libertarians believe in the "power of a human person?" I think you might mean autonomy...because if libertarians believed in the power of a person, then surely they could see the benefit of government (after all, government is just a group of "persons" organized to maintain order and structure in large societies). Next, you claim conservatives distrust people because they put all of their faith in God and "tradition." First off, I love sweeping, blanket-generalizations that clearly fail prima facie. Second, really? Are you talking about social conservatives? Or fiscal conservatives? I refute your argument by pointing to my friend EJB, a conservative, who believes in the power of people. Thirdly, "tradition?" Well...who makes tradition? People. So conservatives really do trust people...just not today's people...only past people...or something? What the hell are you arguing!? You also claim liberals only trust a few people, who should thus rule over others. Nice to see you've bought into the "elitist liberal" argument, but this classification is best conferred upon Platonists. Because that is Plato's Republic, certainly. I don't see many liberals arguing that the "philosopher king" should rule our country. In fact, again, we live in a democratic republic where we don't necessarily believe the our leaders are MORE trustworthy than us, they are simply acting on our behalf...thus both parties (lawmaker and citizen) are considered to be trusted (one in leading, the other in electing good leaders).
Then, inexplicably, you add that you and Barack Obama (I smell a sitcom...) have the "ability to recognize that human beings are powerful enough to overcome the need for a God to direct our actions." Two things: 1) Now we're arguing theological viewpoints? Why is this in here!? 2) Is your point that all conservatives, because they believe only in the "all-powerful forces of the divine and tradition," believe they are divine-right leaders? I kind of hope that is your point because it's gloriously insane. Christopher Shays is not a divine right proponent! Take it back!!
Finally, I want to get back to one more point about your "libertarianism." You state that "government should be limited because people never signed any sort of social contract, and therefore are forced into the system." So, if you're arguing that our government is established on a faulty premise (that is, there really is NO social contract), wouldn't that necessarily lead to the conclusion that our government is, a fortiori, illegitimate? Wouldn't this bring you out of libertarianism and into anarchism? Or are you equating the two? Why should government's powers simply be "limited" if the social contract we ground our system upon is invalid? Why would the government have any power?
In your defense, though, I will repeat that I agree with your overall argument. Obama, as President, should NOT attempt to manage every single facet of our government himself. And I don't think he will. He is a smart enough man to know how to appoint smart and trustworthy people to whom he can delegate some decision-making power. Clinton did it well, Obama will likely fit that mold. I still dislike his candidacy though, and will not vote for him.
~JSK
_______________________________________
Thanks JSK. There's a lot to get through, and this post is sufficiently long already, so I am going to have to be a little selective in my responses.
First on the overall argument and intent - I want to look at what Barack Obama's basic values about management are. I think you characterized my argument correctly here.
A lot of elected officials try to use the "IBM method" to run their governments. Jon Corzine in New Jersey is an excellent example. They determine the exact right course to take in a given situation, and create structures to carry out that directive. Individuals are replacable parts with distinct and unchanging goals. This apporach is simplified to by the phrase, "top down leadership", and is often common among Governors who come from the private sector. It generally does not work in governance. Most campaigns are structured this way - the article that I linked to talks about Kerry's campaign - and it hurts efficiency.
Barack Obama's campaign demonstrates that he (or whomever is proxying the decision for him) believes in the branch method, or a bottom up management style. I think that is pretty clear - he makes speeches about it all of the time. I think that this a clear characteristic of how we can reasonable expect him to manage a White House - something very similar to how Al Gore's "reinventing government" campaign reformed much of government during the 1990s, and a clear difference from how George Bush runs his government.
This observation has led many libertarians (Andrew Sullivan being a great example) to support Obama, branding him a libertarian paternalist - kind of a cross between a liberal and a libertarian, as per my previous definitions. A libertarian paternalist believes that humans can generally be trusted to make good decisions on a collective basis, but government deciders can be useful to nudge an individual in one direction or another. One example would be providing tax incentives to put money into a 401k - creating the "choice architecture" for something overall beneficial to society.
My hope is that Barack Obama, who has stated goals that I disagree with like wealth redistribution, will at least recognize that markets are his most efficient path toward his goal.
Now, this brings us to my other claim, the idea of a debate about human power among ideologies. While I may be generalizing by assigning the labels liberal and conservative, which have different connotations, I think that my observations are accurate absent them. The word conservative has lost its original meaning - I don't think that EJB is a conservative, nor do I think he would generalize himself under what that label means today. If we look at the leaders of the conservative ideology today, we look at faces like Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, George W. Bush, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, etc - we see a basic distrust of human reason as a central tenant of their world view. We can evidence this in the intelligent design debate.
I don't think that it is outlandish to define social conservatism as one of the primary, if not most powerful, political ideologies in the U.S.A. today. The Republican Party is governed almost exclusively by it - just ask Amit. The Democrats don't have as much of a coherent ideology governing them, which is why Barack Obama's thought process is very interesting to me.
- EJF
You can read about the structure of Obama's field organizing here. To sum a fantastic article up in pitifully too few words: The Obama campaign gave up hierarchical control over their field operation, and instead gave tremendous autonomy to field organizers and lead volunteers to run their operation. They set up neighborhood teams, covering about ten precincts, and allowed those teams to find their own way to achieve a vote goal in that area.
The Obama campaign has a textbook way of organizing each district, but that functions only as a tool to guide field organizers and team leaders, not to rigidly direct their actions. Organizers will modify the plan to suit their own district, or come up with new ways of doing things. They recruit team leaders, who recruit other leaders, who recruit other volunteers, who work to persuade, register, and turn out voters. The whole thing is organic.
I consider myself a libertarian for a lot of reasons. One is ideological - my belief that individuals have a human right to control their own social, political, and economic spheres. I believe that government's power should be limited simply because people never signed any sort of social contract, and therefore are forced into the system.
That's all fine and good in a political theory book. The real reason that I am a libertarian is I believe that it works. The key difference between liberals, conservatives, and libertarians is a belief in the power of a human person. Conservatives believe that humans are in effect powerless compared to all-powerful forces like the divine and tradition. They don't trust human beings to make decisions, and instead rest upon the decisions that have persisted throughout history. Liberals trust human beings, but just a few of them. They believe that the "goodest" and smartest people in the room should make decisions for everyone else, for their benefit. Both fear that individuals will choose the wrong option, and therefore will harm themselves and everyone else.
I have a faith in the human being as a decider, and so does Barack Obama's campaign. We both recognonize our own limitations (our inability to be God; to make the correct decision for others) and we both have faith in the ability of trusted to make that decision, provided that they are accountable for the result (our ability to recognize that human beings are powerful enough to overcome the need for a God to direct our actions) and with a common goal.
Markets are about a lack of control. As George Will says here, no one knows how to make a pencil. The person mining the graphite in a mine somewhere does not know where it is going, nor does the person producing the wood or the rubber, and the person putting it all together has no idea where it comes from. The market functions as its own healthy organism, powerful in its ability to adapt and innovate.
Barack Obama (or at least the people running his campaign) seems to get that. Its really difficult for someone to sacrifice control in order to achieve a better product: it seems like a tremendous risk. Ron Paul did it very poorly. Structure and accountability are important, but they are desigend to empower the individual, not to constrain him. I hope that President Obama (now just short of a certainty) learns this lesson when sets up his government. He cannot "manage" an economy, but rather he can assure its accountability and structure. He needs to both lose his faith in his own personal ability to make the correct decision all of the time, and have faith in the ability of others to do just that.
An interesting side question: What happens to this structure after the campaign ends? Where do all of this field organizers and volunteers go? This seems to me like a great opportunity for we as a society to rebuild our social capital and community organizations.
EJF
_______________________________________________________
Interesting post, EJF - and I generally agree with what I take to be your point, namely: Barack Obama should be a President who surrounds himself with accountable people whom he trusts to run things. He should not attempt to take on every issue individually. I think you take the decentralization of his campaign to be an analogy of this. But your post is also all over the place in terms of what you're trying to accomplish. You seem to argue (1)for decentralization, (2) for the rise of libertarianism, (3) for the philosophical superiority of libertarianism over conservatism and liberalism, (4) for atheism, (5) for increasing our trust in everybody, (6) for free markets and finally (7) for Obama to "lose his faith in his own personal ability to make the correct decision all of the time." I'm not sure what many of these have to do with your overall point, but I've a few problems with some things you said.
First, whenever one is faced with an argument from analogy (as we are here), it is important to consider whether the entities being compared are similar. This is where I take issue with what you've laid out. Yes, Obama's campaign operations are decentralized. But do you really believe that campaign operations are similar in nature to the daily/monthly/yearly operations of the various sectors of the American government? In other words, is a campaign organizer facing the same decisions and repercussions that the President of the United States is? Surely not. Obama as campaign leader is free to decentralize his operations because if something were to go wrong, he could simply fire whomever messed up and replace them with one more apt. Contrarily, Obama would have no such luxury as President (just look at the flack Bush Jr. took when he had to replace Alberto Gonzalez). Simply put, there is MUCH more on the line when you're directing an entire country's operations. Obama as President is, in an enormous way, more responsible for his failures or successes than Obama as campaign manager. Thus, while it may actually be the case that decentralization is a workable and successful model for a President to adopt, we surely could not prove that proposition by pointing to the successes of his campaign operations.
Second, I'm going to attack your definition of "libertarian." You claim that you are a libertarian because you believe "individuals have a human right to control their own political, social and economic spheres." (emphasis added) Perhaps your addition of the word "human" before "right" is an unintended argument, but couple this with your atheistic ramblings later in the post, and it seems to indicate that you are intentionally drawing a distinction between "human rights" and "natural rights." I will have you know that "natural rights" do not imply the existence of a God, and thus, as an agnostic myself, I can happily consider myself a natural law legal theorist. So where do your "human rights" come from? Who defines these rights? Every individual? Do I have a "human right" to use my property in such a way that it becomes a nuisance for my neighbors? Or does that "human right" interfere with their "human right" to be free from nuisances? Furthermore, your social contract theory would be a fantastic argument...if only contracts worked that way. You ignore the fact that consent plays a large role in social contract theory. Of course there is no literal contract wherein every citizen of the United States, from 1776 to 2009, signed the document and attested to every term within. The general idea is that, in a democratic republic, we have elected leaders who act on our behalf, who DID literally sign a contract (you may have heard of this thing called the Constitution). Now, your argument may be that, hey, I didn't vote for James Madison, so he can't really represent me...thus, because my ancestors signed the contract and not me, I'm not bound by it. This is also not how contracts work. First, I'd argue that we are, at the very least, third party beneficiaries to the Constitution, simply because the benefits and burdens of the contract passed to us. I would argue more directly, however, that we (citizens today) are a party to the social contract simply because we continuously assent and consent to the terms of the contract itself. Also, what does any of this have to do with your main argument? Why even bring up libertarianism? Don't Conservatives also argue for decentralization?
Which brings me to my next point, what is this junk about the differing views of liberals, conservatives and libertarians regarding human nature? Where are you getting this? Personal experience? Can't be, unless you've completely ignored all of your empirical data. Libertarians believe in the "power of a human person?" I think you might mean autonomy...because if libertarians believed in the power of a person, then surely they could see the benefit of government (after all, government is just a group of "persons" organized to maintain order and structure in large societies). Next, you claim conservatives distrust people because they put all of their faith in God and "tradition." First off, I love sweeping, blanket-generalizations that clearly fail prima facie. Second, really? Are you talking about social conservatives? Or fiscal conservatives? I refute your argument by pointing to my friend EJB, a conservative, who believes in the power of people. Thirdly, "tradition?" Well...who makes tradition? People. So conservatives really do trust people...just not today's people...only past people...or something? What the hell are you arguing!? You also claim liberals only trust a few people, who should thus rule over others. Nice to see you've bought into the "elitist liberal" argument, but this classification is best conferred upon Platonists. Because that is Plato's Republic, certainly. I don't see many liberals arguing that the "philosopher king" should rule our country. In fact, again, we live in a democratic republic where we don't necessarily believe the our leaders are MORE trustworthy than us, they are simply acting on our behalf...thus both parties (lawmaker and citizen) are considered to be trusted (one in leading, the other in electing good leaders).
Then, inexplicably, you add that you and Barack Obama (I smell a sitcom...) have the "ability to recognize that human beings are powerful enough to overcome the need for a God to direct our actions." Two things: 1) Now we're arguing theological viewpoints? Why is this in here!? 2) Is your point that all conservatives, because they believe only in the "all-powerful forces of the divine and tradition," believe they are divine-right leaders? I kind of hope that is your point because it's gloriously insane. Christopher Shays is not a divine right proponent! Take it back!!
Finally, I want to get back to one more point about your "libertarianism." You state that "government should be limited because people never signed any sort of social contract, and therefore are forced into the system." So, if you're arguing that our government is established on a faulty premise (that is, there really is NO social contract), wouldn't that necessarily lead to the conclusion that our government is, a fortiori, illegitimate? Wouldn't this bring you out of libertarianism and into anarchism? Or are you equating the two? Why should government's powers simply be "limited" if the social contract we ground our system upon is invalid? Why would the government have any power?
In your defense, though, I will repeat that I agree with your overall argument. Obama, as President, should NOT attempt to manage every single facet of our government himself. And I don't think he will. He is a smart enough man to know how to appoint smart and trustworthy people to whom he can delegate some decision-making power. Clinton did it well, Obama will likely fit that mold. I still dislike his candidacy though, and will not vote for him.
~JSK
_______________________________________
Thanks JSK. There's a lot to get through, and this post is sufficiently long already, so I am going to have to be a little selective in my responses.
First on the overall argument and intent - I want to look at what Barack Obama's basic values about management are. I think you characterized my argument correctly here.
A lot of elected officials try to use the "IBM method" to run their governments. Jon Corzine in New Jersey is an excellent example. They determine the exact right course to take in a given situation, and create structures to carry out that directive. Individuals are replacable parts with distinct and unchanging goals. This apporach is simplified to by the phrase, "top down leadership", and is often common among Governors who come from the private sector. It generally does not work in governance. Most campaigns are structured this way - the article that I linked to talks about Kerry's campaign - and it hurts efficiency.
Barack Obama's campaign demonstrates that he (or whomever is proxying the decision for him) believes in the branch method, or a bottom up management style. I think that is pretty clear - he makes speeches about it all of the time. I think that this a clear characteristic of how we can reasonable expect him to manage a White House - something very similar to how Al Gore's "reinventing government" campaign reformed much of government during the 1990s, and a clear difference from how George Bush runs his government.
This observation has led many libertarians (Andrew Sullivan being a great example) to support Obama, branding him a libertarian paternalist - kind of a cross between a liberal and a libertarian, as per my previous definitions. A libertarian paternalist believes that humans can generally be trusted to make good decisions on a collective basis, but government deciders can be useful to nudge an individual in one direction or another. One example would be providing tax incentives to put money into a 401k - creating the "choice architecture" for something overall beneficial to society.
My hope is that Barack Obama, who has stated goals that I disagree with like wealth redistribution, will at least recognize that markets are his most efficient path toward his goal.
Now, this brings us to my other claim, the idea of a debate about human power among ideologies. While I may be generalizing by assigning the labels liberal and conservative, which have different connotations, I think that my observations are accurate absent them. The word conservative has lost its original meaning - I don't think that EJB is a conservative, nor do I think he would generalize himself under what that label means today. If we look at the leaders of the conservative ideology today, we look at faces like Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, George W. Bush, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, etc - we see a basic distrust of human reason as a central tenant of their world view. We can evidence this in the intelligent design debate.
I don't think that it is outlandish to define social conservatism as one of the primary, if not most powerful, political ideologies in the U.S.A. today. The Republican Party is governed almost exclusively by it - just ask Amit. The Democrats don't have as much of a coherent ideology governing them, which is why Barack Obama's thought process is very interesting to me.
- EJF
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
U-S-A! U-S-A!
I would just like to call everyone's attention to the fact that this man, a legal resident alien of the United States, has been imprisoned in a Naval Brig in South Carolina for 7 years, without charge. Five of those years were spent in solitary confinement with no access to legal aid, family, friends or the court system.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Worse Than Vote or Die
Can I just say how pissed off I am at this voting awareness PSA?
First, how condescending can you be? Look, actors, just because your place in life happens to involve greater access to certain media does not mean that your views or beliefs are any more relevant or important than any of ours. Of course, it doesn't mean that your views are worthless, either - I am not arguing that actors should be ignored or censored when it comes to political beliefs. But this ad campaign goes too far...you can just see and hear and feel the "Oh, you don't vote...well eff you because clearly you don't give a crap about anything and all you do is sit around and smoke pot."
Second, I'm sorry to say this Leonardo DiCaprio, Whoopi Goldberg and Courtney Cox-Arquette, but you know something? My vote does not count. I'll go Biden-esque here, let me say that again: MY VOTE DOES NOT COUNT. It doesn't matter! With the current electoral college system in place, your vote is relevant if and only if you live in a swing state. My options are to vote in Connecticut or New York. Yes, I could see these being REAL decisive states with lots of questions and doubts about which candidate will carry them. Sarcasm aside, they're going Obama. They were going Obama whether Obama knew it or not...because they're blue states. They're DEEP blue states. So why should I cast my lot in with the other party-following voters?
Third, I don't like these candidates. Neither of them. McCain scares me and he's about to die. Obama is entirely too inexperienced to run our country at a time when war with Iran looms and a second Depression is already upon us. So, why the hell should I vote? Does it mean I don't care...oh right, I guess I can't have ANY OTHER POSSIBLE LEGITIMATE REASON for not voting. It's not like...it could be a social protest or a belief that voting is a waste of my time because no matter which candidate wins, our country's policies won't be how I want them. No...clearly it means I "don't care about" Darfur or Medicare or old people or black people or education or any of the other myriad concerns you actors have so graciously informed me exist.
I have more reasons, besides the smugness, but I'll end this post now. Please, I beg you, if you feel that your vote doesn't count or if you don't like either candidate, DONT VOTE...don't simply bow down to party lines...that is not what our Founding Fathers would have wanted.
~JSK
______________________________________
Eight minute response here before sleep. Here we go.
1. Categorical imperative. Yes, okay, common logic and reason would dictate that living in NJ/NY/CT/RI/MA means that your state's electoral college votes will be going to whomever has a (D) next to their name. But when you make the argument that you shouldn't vote because it doesn't matter, at some point it does reach a Kantian level of "what if everyone thought this way." No, I'm not going to defend the Electoral College (in fact I prefer the NPVIC as a de facto method of removing it) but even given the pointlessness of the exercise, it must be and will be done by SOME, and thereby is irresponsible to argue should not be done by others.
2. Obama over McCain. Ok, I don't really give weight to the "inexperience" argument personally, but I can see it as a valid line of political criticism, even if John McCain's campaign over the past five weeks has been run shittier and gives me less confidence about the future than the Detroit Lions' offense. (Dan Orlovsky -- the pride of UConn!) So why am I going to the polls in three weeks in a pointless exercise and voting Obama? Because Sarah Palin scares the everloving fuck out of me.
-KSH (is there anyway to change to my initials? I'm new at these intrablag things.)
____________________________________________________________
I'm not sure what you mean by "change your initials." Because you clearly understood how to edit this post so if your question was how to literally alter the letters that appear in the blog, I'd imagine you'd have figured that out as well. If the question refers to the fact that your middle name doesn't start with an S (it's Matthew isn't it?)...well then I dunno what to tell you, there. I'm sure you could just post as whatever initials you want to pretend you have.
But to your arguments: (5 minute response before I'm off to read 120 pages of Constitutional Torts)
1) This is the argument I get in response to my griping. And it's one I fully expected you (or anyone else) to make. It's a fantastic philosophical/abstract argument and Immanuel would be proud (even despite his Categorical Imperative having been successfully and forcefully rebutted/rejected numerous times). But my problem is wholly practical. I do not see why I need to take the time out of my day to go get a friggin' form, fill it out and mail it in. This is taking away valuable free time, which I could be using to watch Law and Order repeats or stare into my empty refrigerator (these are things I consider more valuable than voting). It will NEVER be the case, practically, that my blue state (or any deep blue state) will suddenly have an epidemic of like-minded thinkers who decide "eh, fuck it" and throw the balance of power out of whack. And it could very well be because they actually like the Democrat candidate. Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling EVERYONE not to vote. People will and do have legit reasons to cast their ballot. My only problem is with people who normally wouldn't vote anyway, but then, seeing a bunch of actors telling them how important it is for them to pick someone, get up and cast a vote simply based on party affiliations or like...a certain candidate's view on rap music (or whatever it is you damn kids listen to these days...).
2) Obama? Really? Let me tell you, this guy was Chief Editor of the Harvard Law Review. That only implies one thing. No, it's not "he's smart" because I can tell you from experience that not all CE's of Law Reviews are intelligent. It just means he's a prick that everyone else at school hated. Now...that may not be reason enough not to vote for him...because honestly, we've had some prick presidents who I woulda voted for (Clinton, JFK, Martin van Buren, etc.). But is "Sarah Palin scares me" a good reason to vote for Obama? Cause that's not really a vote for Obama...that's a vote for whoever the hell else there is. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. The fact is, these are two of the weakest presidential candidates we've put forward in decades...and that does not bode well for our country. Obama's fiscal liberalness will not help our economy (FDR did not get us out of the Great Depression, WWII did). McCain's oldness will not help our economy either (because he'll die and Sarah Palin will take over and propose that we just print 300million new dollars and give every citizen a million dollars).
Rant over.
~JSK
First, how condescending can you be? Look, actors, just because your place in life happens to involve greater access to certain media does not mean that your views or beliefs are any more relevant or important than any of ours. Of course, it doesn't mean that your views are worthless, either - I am not arguing that actors should be ignored or censored when it comes to political beliefs. But this ad campaign goes too far...you can just see and hear and feel the "Oh, you don't vote...well eff you because clearly you don't give a crap about anything and all you do is sit around and smoke pot."
Second, I'm sorry to say this Leonardo DiCaprio, Whoopi Goldberg and Courtney Cox-Arquette, but you know something? My vote does not count. I'll go Biden-esque here, let me say that again: MY VOTE DOES NOT COUNT. It doesn't matter! With the current electoral college system in place, your vote is relevant if and only if you live in a swing state. My options are to vote in Connecticut or New York. Yes, I could see these being REAL decisive states with lots of questions and doubts about which candidate will carry them. Sarcasm aside, they're going Obama. They were going Obama whether Obama knew it or not...because they're blue states. They're DEEP blue states. So why should I cast my lot in with the other party-following voters?
Third, I don't like these candidates. Neither of them. McCain scares me and he's about to die. Obama is entirely too inexperienced to run our country at a time when war with Iran looms and a second Depression is already upon us. So, why the hell should I vote? Does it mean I don't care...oh right, I guess I can't have ANY OTHER POSSIBLE LEGITIMATE REASON for not voting. It's not like...it could be a social protest or a belief that voting is a waste of my time because no matter which candidate wins, our country's policies won't be how I want them. No...clearly it means I "don't care about" Darfur or Medicare or old people or black people or education or any of the other myriad concerns you actors have so graciously informed me exist.
I have more reasons, besides the smugness, but I'll end this post now. Please, I beg you, if you feel that your vote doesn't count or if you don't like either candidate, DONT VOTE...don't simply bow down to party lines...that is not what our Founding Fathers would have wanted.
~JSK
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Eight minute response here before sleep. Here we go.
1. Categorical imperative. Yes, okay, common logic and reason would dictate that living in NJ/NY/CT/RI/MA means that your state's electoral college votes will be going to whomever has a (D) next to their name. But when you make the argument that you shouldn't vote because it doesn't matter, at some point it does reach a Kantian level of "what if everyone thought this way." No, I'm not going to defend the Electoral College (in fact I prefer the NPVIC as a de facto method of removing it) but even given the pointlessness of the exercise, it must be and will be done by SOME, and thereby is irresponsible to argue should not be done by others.
2. Obama over McCain. Ok, I don't really give weight to the "inexperience" argument personally, but I can see it as a valid line of political criticism, even if John McCain's campaign over the past five weeks has been run shittier and gives me less confidence about the future than the Detroit Lions' offense. (Dan Orlovsky -- the pride of UConn!) So why am I going to the polls in three weeks in a pointless exercise and voting Obama? Because Sarah Palin scares the everloving fuck out of me.
-KSH (is there anyway to change to my initials? I'm new at these intrablag things.)
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I'm not sure what you mean by "change your initials." Because you clearly understood how to edit this post so if your question was how to literally alter the letters that appear in the blog, I'd imagine you'd have figured that out as well. If the question refers to the fact that your middle name doesn't start with an S (it's Matthew isn't it?)...well then I dunno what to tell you, there. I'm sure you could just post as whatever initials you want to pretend you have.
But to your arguments: (5 minute response before I'm off to read 120 pages of Constitutional Torts)
1) This is the argument I get in response to my griping. And it's one I fully expected you (or anyone else) to make. It's a fantastic philosophical/abstract argument and Immanuel would be proud (even despite his Categorical Imperative having been successfully and forcefully rebutted/rejected numerous times). But my problem is wholly practical. I do not see why I need to take the time out of my day to go get a friggin' form, fill it out and mail it in. This is taking away valuable free time, which I could be using to watch Law and Order repeats or stare into my empty refrigerator (these are things I consider more valuable than voting). It will NEVER be the case, practically, that my blue state (or any deep blue state) will suddenly have an epidemic of like-minded thinkers who decide "eh, fuck it" and throw the balance of power out of whack. And it could very well be because they actually like the Democrat candidate. Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling EVERYONE not to vote. People will and do have legit reasons to cast their ballot. My only problem is with people who normally wouldn't vote anyway, but then, seeing a bunch of actors telling them how important it is for them to pick someone, get up and cast a vote simply based on party affiliations or like...a certain candidate's view on rap music (or whatever it is you damn kids listen to these days...).
2) Obama? Really? Let me tell you, this guy was Chief Editor of the Harvard Law Review. That only implies one thing. No, it's not "he's smart" because I can tell you from experience that not all CE's of Law Reviews are intelligent. It just means he's a prick that everyone else at school hated. Now...that may not be reason enough not to vote for him...because honestly, we've had some prick presidents who I woulda voted for (Clinton, JFK, Martin van Buren, etc.). But is "Sarah Palin scares me" a good reason to vote for Obama? Cause that's not really a vote for Obama...that's a vote for whoever the hell else there is. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. The fact is, these are two of the weakest presidential candidates we've put forward in decades...and that does not bode well for our country. Obama's fiscal liberalness will not help our economy (FDR did not get us out of the Great Depression, WWII did). McCain's oldness will not help our economy either (because he'll die and Sarah Palin will take over and propose that we just print 300million new dollars and give every citizen a million dollars).
Rant over.
~JSK
Friday, October 10, 2008
Hello to Alaska!
My Google Analytics tells me that we have a repeat visitor from Anchorage, Alaska! So let me greet you in what must be your native tongue:
Hallo! Gosh darn it, welcome to Friar Fight! (I just winked at you). I think we've got a good thing goin' here and that you'll enjoy readin' our fine blog, doggone it! Oh you're leavin'? Say it ain't so, Joe! (If your name is not Joe, insert your name in place of Joe...unless your name does not rhyme with Joe, in which case you must pretend your name is Joe.) (I just winked at you again.) Dagnabbit, I guess we'll see you again sometime soon! .......maverick.
~JSK
Hallo! Gosh darn it, welcome to Friar Fight! (I just winked at you). I think we've got a good thing goin' here and that you'll enjoy readin' our fine blog, doggone it! Oh you're leavin'? Say it ain't so, Joe! (If your name is not Joe, insert your name in place of Joe...unless your name does not rhyme with Joe, in which case you must pretend your name is Joe.) (I just winked at you again.) Dagnabbit, I guess we'll see you again sometime soon! .......maverick.
~JSK
Question
Suppose you have a one-time opportunity to magically and instantly grant selective amnesia to America, erasing all awareness of the recent financial disaster. This amnesia will affect not only individual memories, but all recorded evidence of the crisis, including newspaper articles, personal blogs, relevant SNL sketches, etc. Would you do it? What if your memories were likewise compromised?
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Nice, should we call this case, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Securities Trader Mind?" I'd have to say that I would not do it...mainly because, regardless of whether my memories of the disaster have been erased, the fact remains that the crash would still be happening. Thus I'd likely run to my broker and say, "Broker! Go buy me $10,000's worth of highly risky sub-prime mortgage securities! I have a good feeling about those!" I'd be even more encouraged to do that because, in your construct, all media coverage and thus all warning of the event, would be erased. In fact, would there be any good reason for choosing the amnesia route? We lose SNL skits, we lose personal blogs...what do we gain? Peace of mind? An end to ridiculous postings by former PCDS President's who feel it is their God-given duty to protect the free-market from blame and instead, throw every other person/industry/organism even MILDLY associated with the crash under the bus!?!?
I vote no.
~JSK
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I also say no, and it is precisely because I, a former PCDS President, want to throw every other person/industry/organism even mildly associated with the crash under the bus to protect the free market, though I question whether this God-given or even a duty.
-NTC
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Nice, should we call this case, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Securities Trader Mind?" I'd have to say that I would not do it...mainly because, regardless of whether my memories of the disaster have been erased, the fact remains that the crash would still be happening. Thus I'd likely run to my broker and say, "Broker! Go buy me $10,000's worth of highly risky sub-prime mortgage securities! I have a good feeling about those!" I'd be even more encouraged to do that because, in your construct, all media coverage and thus all warning of the event, would be erased. In fact, would there be any good reason for choosing the amnesia route? We lose SNL skits, we lose personal blogs...what do we gain? Peace of mind? An end to ridiculous postings by former PCDS President's who feel it is their God-given duty to protect the free-market from blame and instead, throw every other person/industry/organism even MILDLY associated with the crash under the bus!?!?
I vote no.
~JSK
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I also say no, and it is precisely because I, a former PCDS President, want to throw every other person/industry/organism even mildly associated with the crash under the bus to protect the free market, though I question whether this God-given or even a duty.
-NTC
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