Morning Ed: Politics {2016.06.16.Th}
The last time a Republican tried to call out a judge for being not-white, things didn’t go very well.
For parties ostensibly on opposite sides, the parallels between the Republicans and Labour can be spooky sometimes.
Bruce Frohnen looks at the Yuval Levin’s book on the origins of right and left.
From AEI, the conservative case against the Brexit. Paul Mason makes the leftwing case for (an eventual) Brexit.
I so love u, I so love u, I so love Uuutaaaaaaaah!
Well this is just cheery.
Todd Seavey says that the markets helped Bernie Sanders well.
“Sixty percent of likely voters say nominating Trump next month at the party’s national convention in Cleveland is bad for the Republican Party.”
Trump rally tweets: God I’d love to see this shirt, “Vendors selling Hillary Sucks But Not Like Monica shirts.”
I’d wear that to watch a movie and have dinner with my VERY LIBERAL actress friend. She’d be incensed.
I LOLed.Report
I can sign onto the implied contention in Sexton’s Tweets that the shirt is in poor taste and offensive, but it does raise the question of whether the shirt is more offensive than the acts on which it is based.Report
You seem charming.Report
I could say the same thing about my friend who, and I quote, texted me the following:
“It’s unfortunate that you and many others fail to recognize the brilliant choice they have (in Hillary)”
“At least I have something to think with and/or don’t have said thinking tool shoved so far up my own ass that I can use it properly. Unlike most Americans right now.”
I’m sure you think she’s adorable. This is what passes for “deep political thought” in my state and why she and I don’t talk about politics. In all other respects, she’s a perfectly normal, self absorbed, self centered, narcissistic actress who “can’t believe I think that way” on any subject.Report
See? I know people who work for Hillary. They’re not the type to think she’s brilliant (Bill, on the other hand, was a bonafide genius — doesn’t mean he did anything with it other than upset apple carts. Chaos is profitable).Report
Turns out that any political cause with more than 25 supporters, has at least one supporter who is an asshole. Big surprise.
Clearly the only available response is to sink to their level.Report
Trolls be trolls, some just dress it up fancier.Report
That’s the best critique of markets I’ve ever seen.Report
I got a better one for you:
Every day someone drives the entire city, taking down license places of all the cars — and farming the data out to a loose consortium of “interested people”.
You have no more privacy, if you are in public, you are on camera (often traffic cameras).
Try not to be interesting.Report
As an aside, this illustrates why I’m not a big fan of the phrase “marketplace of ideas.” One of the key reasons that markets work so well is that people pay most of the costs and receive most of the benefits of the market choices they make. To the extent that the costs and/or benefits are largely external, we get market failure and the system breaks down. With the “market” for political ideas, the costs and benefits are almost entirely external, so it’s all market failure, all the time.Report
Gettin’ the girls is something that is internalized benefits, no?
Persuasive power does not mean that any idea is actually practical, nor effective in predicting future action.Report
Yeah, that was a bit baffling.
‘Democratic outcomes are egalitarian, whereas market outcomes are tilted towards the people with the most money! This is, somehow, an argument towards markets and against democracy!’
I mean, there’s all sorts of things wrong with that (To start with, markets and democracy are for different purposes, and thus probably should have different outcomes.), but if we pretend that argument makes sense, most people would come to the conclusion that’s the *markets* that have the wrong outcome, not democracy!Report
As well as starting out with the unstated premise that markets and governments are binary poles, mutually exclusive.Report
Well, at the most basic level, you can either have a system where everyone has, by rule, equal say in determining outcomes, or have a system where, by rule, people have *unequal* say.
Either the system says ‘Each person has fixed and equal amount of decision-making power’, or it say ‘Each person has a different amount of decision-making power, which is determined by…’.
In *theory*, each system has that defined.
Of course, in reality, powerful people have pretty uneven say in democracy, and likewise we put all sorts of weird restraints and rules on letting people, even powerful people, just ‘decide’ things in the market. (For the most obvious example, we don’t let someone buy up all the copper in the world and sell it for whatever price they want.)Report
The confusion is that Seavey seems to be pitting markets against democracy, or government, or majority rule, or something.
He seems hung up on the distinction between markets, where everybody can get what they want, versus majority rule, where the 49% has to get what the 51% want.
Markets and democratic forms of government do different things, and in fact intertwine in many interdependent ways.Report
1. I find modern right-wingers invoking Burke to be kind of pompous and condescending. Why do they get to decide what gets to change and what is the proper speed of change? Invoking caution and change and Burke seems like a more high brow version of FYIGM. Only done by people prone to wearing bow ties.
2. The Trump rally essay was disturbing especially the guy who attacked his kid for asking for ice cream. Trump’s polls are collapsing but I wonder what happens after Trump. He is letting bottled up anger, racism, and sexism out of the bag.
3. The biggest similarity between Labour and the GOP is that their bases embrace politics and policies that are overall unpopular with the greater population of the countries at large. Labour’s core is much further to the left than Britain overall and the GOP base is much further to the right. Both might spend time in the wilderness.Report
The Trump rally piece made pompous Burkeans much more appealing. We’ve got to have somebody to argue with, so I think I’d rather have door #1Report
Wait, that’s the other option? I thought that the other option was the “I’m With Her” t-shirt store.Report
Well you’re going to have to wear an I’m with her T-shirt either way. The question is whether or not you wear it ironically. Don’t forget that I’m one of those snake people.Report
@don-zeko
Fair enough. What I wonder about is how many Trump supporters have been keeping their anger bottled up for ages?Report
I don’t think we get to choose the Burkeans; we’re stuck with the Trumpets whether we like it or not.Report
Under wraps is where their anger is better placed. A part of the Trump problem is the peeling away of the norms and institutions that has been keeping the ids in check.
BTW, @Don_Zeko I’m *thrilled* somebody made that connection.Report
Says YOU, who isn’t being milked like a cow, and drained dry of every scrap of human dignity in the process. There’s a reason I call ’em fentanyl democrats.Report
Next year you’ll be arguing with the Hillary Supporters (like David) — assuming she wins, which is very much in doubt. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on now.Report
So the fact that David and I are both Hillary supporters won’t keep us from arguing with each other next year over… something?Report
Are you talking about me?
Calling me a Hillary supporter is a bit disingenuous. I supported Bernie over Hillary.
Now that Bernie is out (Whether he admits it or not.), yes, I support Hillary over Trump. (Hell, I support the resurrected corpse of Richard Nixon over Trump.)
And I’m sure me and Don can figure something to argue about.Report
Yes, but I’m not saying that to be disingenuous.
(and your support of Bernie is appreciated).
I think you’re a Yellow Dog Democrat, and even when we go to war, you’ll still be a Yellow Dog Democrat supporting Hillary (The Mad Bomber, and that is NOT a nickname I came up with)…
While I do think that Nixon would make a better president than Trump, I think if you combined both of their neuroses they’d do better than the current incarnation of Hillary Clinton (which, for that matter, is quite recent. March, if you will. February’s Clinton was much less alarming).Report
I freely admit I am a Yellow Dog Democrat, in that I am *extremely* unlikely to vote for Republicans at any level above local.Report
And when everyone you hate on the Republican side becomes a Democrat, I will feel your pain, but will not stand beside you as you justify jackassed stupidity.
They’ll feed on your pigheadedness, your obliviousness, and your hate. It’ll only make them stronger.Report
And when everyone you hate on the Republican side becomes a Democrat, I will feel your pain, but will not stand beside you as you justify jackassed stupidity.
WTF are you talking about?
Your theory seems to be that, because I only want to vote for Democrats, that Republican will all…change parties? And still get elected?
First of all, that makes no sense, and also you’ve failed to present any sort of *alternative* that would result in Republicans *not* getting elected. Me not voting for Democrats would result in the Republicans being in office *as Republicans*, which is hardly a better outcome from my point of view.
Secondly…that’s a pretty damn happy universe you’ve proposed. Even if they *literally had exactly the same beliefs*, they still would no longer try to out-conservative each other and wouldn’t be beholden to the very 100% pure litmus tests, like anti-gun control and pro-life, that the right have. Likewise, we’d awesomely get rid of the various party-line fake fillibusters on everything.
Obviously, electing actual Democrats is better, but electing Republicans *as* Democrats is still better than electing Republicans *as* Republicans, as it totally destroys any sort of Republican Party control and fixes a lot of things that cause extremism. Even *if* they don’t start voting more like Democrats (Which they totally would.), we’d still be better off.
I have no idea what sort of dumbass hypothetical you think this is, but it really doesn’t work like you think.
They’ll feed on your pigheadedness, your obliviousness, and your hate. It’ll only make them stronger.
You…just make things up and ascribe them to people, don’t you?Report
That’s what I get for relying on Kim to remember where everybody shook out in the dem primary.Report
Better if you don’t rely on me. Safer, really.Report
But then he opens up door #3 and it has a goat behind it. Pick door #3. Only door 100% guaranteed to yield a free goat.Report
And for God’s sake – hold on to the red snapper, don’t trade it for what’s in the box!Report
Why do they get to decide what gets to change and what is the proper speed of change?
Why do you?Report
I’ve read only the essay, and not Levin’s book, so perhaps you’re addressing a point Levin made when you read it, because the essay seems not to be talking about “modern right-wingers.”
As you know, there are several different strands of conservatism in the US, just as there are different strands of what we may call liberalism and of what we may call leftism. Or if we’re not going to speak of something so abstract as “strands,” maybe we can talk of constituencies.
At any rate, I suggest that each strand/constituency has its Burkean and its Painian elements. Both can be taken too far or too pompously or too condescendingly or in a too obstructionist manner, and yet each may also bring something good to the table. It’s worth pointing out that one reason legalized ssm is now possible is that enough people otherwise inclined to social conservatism have bought into the notion that same sex marriage represents and extension of family values and stability with which they were very familiar. I say “enough [such] people” and not “most [such] people” because I don’t necessarily think it’s “most.” But enough had to buy into it in order to make ssm a discussable issue.
Now, there is Burkeanism of convenience just as there is principled Burkeanism. And some social conservatives’ insistence on “man and woman” marriage resorted to such Burkeanism of convenience arguments, a phenomenon of the sort you were probably getting at with your comment. There are at least two ways to address that. One is to engage Brandon’s question (and your question, because it’s really the same as Brandon’s) and do a tit-for-tat of who is and isn’t being more disingenuous or condescending or presumptuous. Another is to focus on the arguments, on the principles underlying those arguments, and refuting or supporting them. The first way is easiest. The second is hard and can be done only imperfectly.Report
Conservatives Burkean? All they have left in Painian and Palinian.Report
Well, that’s one way to answer my comment.Report
Your missing another similarity between Labour and the GOP. Both parties are having significant problems because they went after a source of votes that they found easy, numerous, and easy to contain but found uncontainable. For the GOP, it was the Evangelical Christians and Trump supporters. For Labour, it was the Muslim population with their problems of anti-Semitism.Report
An interesting article.
An interesting first couple of sentences:
Report
I’m surprised they ever did.Report
Of course they did, you have to display the proper cultural sensitivity these days. Besides, shouldn’t these migrants feel at homr, right?Report
Well reading the article it looks like it was an unwritten norm to get around awkward situations and now it’s done with so that’s good news.Report
Is it good news? I’m honestly not sure.
Is the outcome now that polygamous families are forced to choose between staying in a situation that is presumably bad enough to warrant fleeing as refugees, or choosing a wife to stay behind, abandoned, never to see her children, husband, or fellow wife again?
I’m not comfortable that that’s a legitimate trade-off in exchange for eradicating polygamy (the presence of polygamous families, not the performance of polygamous marriages – nobody’s getting married to a second spouse while already in Germany, that’s illegal under German law) This is only about whether or not to allow families in as they actually exist. The crime of polygamy, in Germany, is the crime of *getting married* while already married to someone else, not of *being married* to more than one person. Which, thanks to jurisdictional boundaries, means that a person who gets married to another spouse in a jurisdiction where that’s legal, probably can’t be prosecuted for it in Germany.
Once in Germany, a married person could presumably meet someone else who’s also already legally in Germany, and live polyamorously, just not polygamously (i.e. potentially in every way like polygamy but without a legally binding marriage) if they should so choose.
My understanding is that in Canada, there are a certain number of “wife’s sister” family members admitted, where birth certificates maybe don’t entirely align with the whole ‘same parents’ convention of sisterhood. I think I prefer that model, on the whole, as imperfect as it is.Report
you can make an argument around polygamy but I don’t see it that way. They can just accept that they’ll only have one wife if they immigrate to Germany and the others will have to cohabit in that shadow state polygamous couples inhabit already. With regards to the other stuff they’re no longer giving latitude for like child marriages or forced marriages I am happy they’re not making exceptions any more.Report
They can just accept that they’ll only have one wife if they immigrate to Germany and the others will have to cohabit in that shadow state polygamous couples inhabit already.
That’s assuming there is some semi off-the-books way for the family to still enter Germany as a family. From the Bild article (if you can call it that – I frequently write longer text messages) it sounds like that’s the exact practice they’re looking to put an end to.
As for child brides – it seems on the whole to be desirable to not let a 20 year old man enter the country with his 12 year old wife. As long as they’re not excluding the 60 year old man and his 52 year old wife of 40 years.
I mean – maybe, probably, I think. I hope the outcome is not that the 20 year old immigrates as a single man and abandons his wife.Report
It still strikes me as necessary regardless of the downsides you quite correctly point out. The German electorate is souring on the amount of immigration they’re currently permitting. If it looks like they’re importing not just people but new undebated and unwanted laws and customs that could result in a backlash that could cut off immigration enormously.Report
This. Its not really fashionable to point it out these days but immigrants do have at least some responsibility in acculturating to some of the norms of the places they immigrate to and being a productive member of society.Report
Sorry I fail to see why the Germans should adopt new social norms to make immigrants feel welcome.Report
It’s because Germany doesn’t have a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, to protect the free expression of faith.Report
No no the RFRA is only supposed to protect approved conservative sub sects of Christian faith, other faiths aren’t faiths.Report
Our laws and social norms on age of consent and monogamous marriage are objective natural laws, etched into the very DNA of humanity.
Their norms are bizarre Bronze Age superstition and barbarism.Report
So I guess you are ok with child brides and genital mutilation? We have to respect their culture, right?Report
No, but I’m ok with male genital mutilation and purity balls.Report
And wife-stealing, and child-beating-to-death, so long as they’re good Christians practicing good christian culture.Report
Hell, our laws on consent at all, right?Report
The one thing they always say about Chuck Schumer he that he’s such a conservative Christian.Report
Some Muslims in the United States attempt to get around the polygamy ban by having one legal wife and women they married in religious ceremonies but do not hold out to the world as their wives. USCIS frequently debates whether this should be treated as a violation of the ban on polygamy for immigration purposes. They aren’t polygamous per se but it is fairly obvious what is going on.Report
Underage marriage seemed to have something of an issue in the United Kingdom to. Asian British teenagers, usually girls, would be sent to Pakistan before leaving the British equivalent of high school to marry a cousin or something. It was apparently common enough for the British government to get involved and try to encourage girls to turn to law enforcement if this happens. The Illiberal problem is an even a bigger issue in the age of globalism.Report
Dozens of U.S. Diplomats, in Memo, Urge Strikes Against Syria’s Assad
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/world/middleeast/syria-assad-obama-airstrikes-diplomats-memo.html?_r=0
Nice to see that our diplomats have finally realized how pathetic Obama’s policies are.Report
On the one hand the US could continue supporting the successful effort to shove a psychotic death cult back into the rathole that it scuttled out of, or on the other hand it could go back to ignoring Daesh while squabbling with Russia over the Assad government (which worked out oh so effing well in the first place.)
You don’t care as long as it ends up with egg on Democratic faces, do you?Report
It seems like it what only yesterday that @notme was complaining bitterly that Obama’s unwillingness to confront ISIS was placing us all at grave risk.
Probably because he was literally doing that yesterday.Report
This article was used to illustrate that a number of folks in the know think we should be more involved.Report