I'm mildly frustrated that my own comments are no longer visible to me for review.
I don't think I was being an egregious dick in them, and was mostly objecting to the politicization of teenage mischief in other comments, but the message I intended to send may not have been the message received.
Well, yeah. Because if college keeps costing more, eventually it will at least signal (a) again. As for (b), I'm not sure that college has ever done a very good job conferring it, but admissions standards, scholarships and the like screen for it.
Does a degree indicate that the person in question can pick up a 180 pound sack of potatoes and proceed to climb down a ladder?
I don't think it's all that plausible that a degree has ever indicated that with any high degree of probability. I think a degree once may have indicated that either (a) had the right class background or (b) you could carry that metaphorical sack of potatoes. Now I'm not sure it's much good for indicating either, but before, I'm not sure it indicated (b) when it indicated (b) on the basis of the actual education received over the course of obtaining the degree.
Generally speaking, people believe that their own politics are rooted in reasoned reflection, while people who disagree with them are simply indulging in tribalism. This is true of people who detest Frank and deBoer, and of Frank and deBoer themselves.
To what extent has the ready availability of college loans made it easier for a person to afford to go to college?
That seems like a difficult question to nail down. There's a lot more people going to college, of course, and many of those people clearly would be unable to attend college if not for the loans. On the other hand, college has gotten much more expensive.
However, I can't help but notice that spiraling tuition costs are one mechanism that will make it harder for people to get college educations, even with loans [1], and that will tend to make a college degree indicative of coming from a particular class background. This isn't the only "qualification" that could (once did, may again) serve as an effective class marker; unpaid internships are another.
[1] After all, they must be paid back, and there is a degree of risk involved beyond that in that people who fall to complete their degrees.
If you see the point of the degree as employment preparation, why wouldn’t you give college degrees to absolutely everyone who manages to successfully get approved for a loan?
Because you want only people who can afford to go to college without those loans to get the jobs those degrees qualify them for?
Yes, your daughter shouldn't have knocked over the Trump sign. Yes, she should apologize. Bringing a piece offering is not a bad idea, either.
But... what we're talking about here is a teenager engaging in a bit of petty vandalism. It's not good, but it is an extremely common form of teenage mischief. It actually requires very little in the form of explanation. If we're seeking to attach broader meaning to anything, I gotta wonder about a political and cultural environment that inclines us to invest routine adolescent obnoxiousness with meaning beyond the obvious.
OK, this is absolute bullshit. People are so desperate to blame Trump on anyone but Trump supporters that they figure that simple things like causality aren't relevant to assigning blame any more.
Knocking down signs is wrong. The kid should apologize and take responsibility for her actions instead of trying to blame someone else for them.
Trump supporters, especially ones who are actual full-grown adults, are responsible for their actions, too.
I think it says a lot about Bernie and a little about Hillary.
I don't think Hillary was a particularly weak primary candidate [1], but she had a specific weakness that Sanders was well-positions to exploit [2], but there have also been enough changes in the Democratic Party and the country as a whole that an explicitly leftist candidate was able to get a lot of traction. And he built on that further by going out of his way to focus on appealing to young voters and their specific concerns.
[1] On the contrary, I think she was an unusually strong primary candidate, which is why she drew so few challengers.
[2] Fair or not, people think the Clintons are shady.
As in, why should I believe that they have any interest in the issue that doesn't boil down to xenophobia? Unlike the other issues Millman outlined--international trade and opposition to interventionist policy--I've never seen much evidence that border hawks are interested in solving any problem I care about even in principle.
But just because I didn't see evidence before didn't mean it didn't exist.
On the other hand, the fact that they think, by al availablel evidence, overwhelmingly support Trump, suggests to me that they are, on the whole, way too disconnected from reality and way too comfortable with outright racism to be given any benefit of the doubt at all.
I have to say, I've never been sympathetic to border hawks, but I don't see how they and their cause isn't actually completely discredited by the extent to which they flocked to Trump.
I think this isn't really the standard to judge by. Bernie Sanders isn't a conventional candidate who lost fairly decisively--he's an insurgent outsider that did extremely well by that standard. If you compare him to previous, unexpectedly successful insurgent candidates, like Pat Buchanan for the GOP or Jesse Jackson on the left [1], he did amazingly well. And both Buchanan and Jackson, I would argue, had lasting effects on their respective parties. Or maybe they were just bellwethers of where the parties were going to go.
Either way, in ten or fifteen years, I expect that the Democratic Party will look like a Sandernista party, not a Clintonian party.
[1] And I really appreciate Tod Kelly's article for pointing out the Jackson comparison.
It's not nearly as common a conspiracy theory as "Obama is a secret Muslim!" but, "Obama is a secret Jew!" has a fair amount of currency among the anti-semitic nutcases of the world.
Me, though, I know the truth. He's totally a secret Zoroastrian.
I'll admit that my knee jerk, cynical assumption is that it's always been a bad proxy for actually knowing how to do anything useful, and the real problem is that it's also becoming a bad proxy for social class.
I'm not saying you're wrong--the complaints are pretty plausible and a lot of the issues seem in line with general institutional failures to address issues of recreational drug use and addition in an intelligent way.
I am saying that I can hardly fault @chip-daniels for being wary of the boy crying wolf, here.
Jaybird: Did you read my argument as if saying “I just disagree whether a degree in video game criticism indicates that the recipient has received a Liberal Arts Education” is the same thing as saying that studying these things necessarily does not involve receiving a Liberal Arts Education?
Necessarily? No. But I did read it as suggesting that a degree in one of those subjects is, somehow, a particularly bad proxy for having learned those skills, and that people who have degrees in the humanities and social sciences are particularly worthy of skepticism.
If you did, would you mind if I used that as an example that makes my point?
My degrees are in math and physics, so I don't think it's fair to blame my lack of reading comprehension on the humanities classes I assiduously and successfully avoided taking in college.
j r: This is what Lee said, “but the American right has been opposing even the most market friendly forms of welfare for an equally long time.” And that is to what I was responding.
And that's the problem. Because what @leeesq said is true. The right sometimes talks a good game, but they routinely start fighting the very programs they advocated once people actually try to implement them.
The EITC is, by most accounts, one of the most market-friendly anti-poverty interventions out there, and (AIUI) actually originated on the right. Nonetheless, now that it's an actual part of our welfare state, it's... increasingly a target of Republican politicians who are upset that people making less than the median income aren't paying more taxes.
There's been a similar reaction to the ACA, where large components (including the healthcare mandate) of it originated as a conservative alternative to earlier reform efforts. Once it was implemented at the national level, conservatives turned around and declared, based on not very much, that the mandate was not only bad, but unconstitutional.
When people do that, it tells me that they are not actually interested in poverty alleviation, but interested in thinking of themselves or being seen as the kind of person who cares about the poor.
That seems to be a remarkably apt description of how the American right sees the cause of alleviating poverty, given the way they propose welfare state reforms that become anathema after people try to implement them.
Apropos of not very much, until very recently, there was a convenience store called "6-Eleven" on my drive to work. They changed their name to something less memorable; I don't know whether 7-11's lawyers got to them or they just decided that advertising themselves as an inferior knockoff of 7-11 was really pitiful.
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, it's far from obvious to me why any of the areas of study discussed, from History to, yes, Video Game Criticism, would necessarily not involve learning to do those things.
I gotta say, as soon as I actually got to see him in action, Edwards always really set off my creep radar[1]. Kerry was never anything like my first choice for President in 2004[2], and his inability to get traction in 2008 was heavily overdetermined, but it's really hard for me to see negative commentary about Edwards and not believe it.
[1] And that was despite the fact that I don't think I was aware of his tendency to be racist as hell prior to Vikram Bath mentioning it a few weeks ago on Twitter.
[2] "Let's nominate the jerk from Massachusetts," seems to be how major parties say, "I got nothin'."
My problem[1] with Alexander's take is there's a lot of room between lying outright, and tolerating outright lying, and being nice. In particular, he wants to enforce a certain set of norms for discourse, and I don't see how you can really do that without saying, with regards to certain people in certain circumstances, that their conduct makes it so that you shouldn't engage with their arguments.
[1] Well, that and he assumed the bungled calculations about the rate of false rape accusations must be the result of deliberate dishonesty. I think you should never underestimate the ability of people to honestly but completely mangle that sort of computation.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.08.15.M}”
I'm mildly frustrated that my own comments are no longer visible to me for review.
I don't think I was being an egregious dick in them, and was mostly objecting to the politicization of teenage mischief in other comments, but the message I intended to send may not have been the message received.
On “University reform: Demand driven system has devalued degrees and made some feel like failures”
Well, yeah. Because if college keeps costing more, eventually it will at least signal (a) again. As for (b), I'm not sure that college has ever done a very good job conferring it, but admissions standards, scholarships and the like screen for it.
"
Does a degree indicate that the person in question can pick up a 180 pound sack of potatoes and proceed to climb down a ladder?
I don't think it's all that plausible that a degree has ever indicated that with any high degree of probability. I think a degree once may have indicated that either (a) had the right class background or (b) you could carry that metaphorical sack of potatoes. Now I'm not sure it's much good for indicating either, but before, I'm not sure it indicated (b) when it indicated (b) on the basis of the actual education received over the course of obtaining the degree.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.08.15.M}”
Remember the Bette Midler movie “The Rose”?
Now that you mention it, no.
"
It seems a little weird to be surprised how Bill Weld-y Bill Weld is.
"
I think this assertion is... completely weird?
Generally speaking, people believe that their own politics are rooted in reasoned reflection, while people who disagree with them are simply indulging in tribalism. This is true of people who detest Frank and deBoer, and of Frank and deBoer themselves.
On “University reform: Demand driven system has devalued degrees and made some feel like failures”
To what extent has the ready availability of college loans made it easier for a person to afford to go to college?
That seems like a difficult question to nail down. There's a lot more people going to college, of course, and many of those people clearly would be unable to attend college if not for the loans. On the other hand, college has gotten much more expensive.
However, I can't help but notice that spiraling tuition costs are one mechanism that will make it harder for people to get college educations, even with loans [1], and that will tend to make a college degree indicative of coming from a particular class background. This isn't the only "qualification" that could (once did, may again) serve as an effective class marker; unpaid internships are another.
[1] After all, they must be paid back, and there is a degree of risk involved beyond that in that people who fall to complete their degrees.
"
If you see the point of the degree as employment preparation, why wouldn’t you give college degrees to absolutely everyone who manages to successfully get approved for a loan?
Because you want only people who can afford to go to college without those loans to get the jobs those degrees qualify them for?
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.08.15.M}”
What happened to the "(Trump) Sign of the Times" post? It seems to have vanished into ether.
On “(Trump) Sign of the Times”
I'm gonna dissent a bit.
Yes, your daughter shouldn't have knocked over the Trump sign. Yes, she should apologize. Bringing a piece offering is not a bad idea, either.
But... what we're talking about here is a teenager engaging in a bit of petty vandalism. It's not good, but it is an extremely common form of teenage mischief. It actually requires very little in the form of explanation. If we're seeking to attach broader meaning to anything, I gotta wonder about a political and cultural environment that inclines us to invest routine adolescent obnoxiousness with meaning beyond the obvious.
"
OK, this is absolute bullshit. People are so desperate to blame Trump on anyone but Trump supporters that they figure that simple things like causality aren't relevant to assigning blame any more.
Knocking down signs is wrong. The kid should apologize and take responsibility for her actions instead of trying to blame someone else for them.
Trump supporters, especially ones who are actual full-grown adults, are responsible for their actions, too.
On “Morning Ed: Government {2016.08.11.Th}”
I think it says a lot about Bernie and a little about Hillary.
I don't think Hillary was a particularly weak primary candidate [1], but she had a specific weakness that Sanders was well-positions to exploit [2], but there have also been enough changes in the Democratic Party and the country as a whole that an explicitly leftist candidate was able to get a lot of traction. And he built on that further by going out of his way to focus on appealing to young voters and their specific concerns.
[1] On the contrary, I think she was an unusually strong primary candidate, which is why she drew so few challengers.
[2] Fair or not, people think the Clintons are shady.
"
As in, why should I believe that they have any interest in the issue that doesn't boil down to xenophobia? Unlike the other issues Millman outlined--international trade and opposition to interventionist policy--I've never seen much evidence that border hawks are interested in solving any problem I care about even in principle.
But just because I didn't see evidence before didn't mean it didn't exist.
On the other hand, the fact that they think, by al availablel evidence, overwhelmingly support Trump, suggests to me that they are, on the whole, way too disconnected from reality and way too comfortable with outright racism to be given any benefit of the doubt at all.
"
I have to say, I've never been sympathetic to border hawks, but I don't see how they and their cause isn't actually completely discredited by the extent to which they flocked to Trump.
"
I think this isn't really the standard to judge by. Bernie Sanders isn't a conventional candidate who lost fairly decisively--he's an insurgent outsider that did extremely well by that standard. If you compare him to previous, unexpectedly successful insurgent candidates, like Pat Buchanan for the GOP or Jesse Jackson on the left [1], he did amazingly well. And both Buchanan and Jackson, I would argue, had lasting effects on their respective parties. Or maybe they were just bellwethers of where the parties were going to go.
Either way, in ten or fifteen years, I expect that the Democratic Party will look like a Sandernista party, not a Clintonian party.
[1] And I really appreciate Tod Kelly's article for pointing out the Jackson comparison.
On “Linky Friday #179: Armies of Darkness”
It's not nearly as common a conspiracy theory as "Obama is a secret Muslim!" but, "Obama is a secret Jew!" has a fair amount of currency among the anti-semitic nutcases of the world.
Me, though, I know the truth. He's totally a secret Zoroastrian.
On “University reform: Demand driven system has devalued degrees and made some feel like failures”
I'll admit that my knee jerk, cynical assumption is that it's always been a bad proxy for actually knowing how to do anything useful, and the real problem is that it's also becoming a bad proxy for social class.
On “The FDA’s New Rules for E-Cigarettes Are Already Hurting Vape Shops”
I'm not saying you're wrong--the complaints are pretty plausible and a lot of the issues seem in line with general institutional failures to address issues of recreational drug use and addition in an intelligent way.
I am saying that I can hardly fault @chip-daniels for being wary of the boy crying wolf, here.
On “University reform: Demand driven system has devalued degrees and made some feel like failures”
Necessarily? No. But I did read it as suggesting that a degree in one of those subjects is, somehow, a particularly bad proxy for having learned those skills, and that people who have degrees in the humanities and social sciences are particularly worthy of skepticism.
My degrees are in math and physics, so I don't think it's fair to blame my lack of reading comprehension on the humanities classes I assiduously and successfully avoided taking in college.
On “The FDA’s New Rules for E-Cigarettes Are Already Hurting Vape Shops”
You do know the EPA and FDA are different things, right?
On “Morning Ed: Government {2016.08.11.Th}”
And that's the problem. Because what @leeesq said is true. The right sometimes talks a good game, but they routinely start fighting the very programs they advocated once people actually try to implement them.
The EITC is, by most accounts, one of the most market-friendly anti-poverty interventions out there, and (AIUI) actually originated on the right. Nonetheless, now that it's an actual part of our welfare state, it's... increasingly a target of Republican politicians who are upset that people making less than the median income aren't paying more taxes.
There's been a similar reaction to the ACA, where large components (including the healthcare mandate) of it originated as a conservative alternative to earlier reform efforts. Once it was implemented at the national level, conservatives turned around and declared, based on not very much, that the mandate was not only bad, but unconstitutional.
That seems to be a remarkably apt description of how the American right sees the cause of alleviating poverty, given the way they propose welfare state reforms that become anathema after people try to implement them.
On “Linky Friday #179: Armies of Darkness”
Apropos of not very much, until very recently, there was a convenience store called "6-Eleven" on my drive to work. They changed their name to something less memorable; I don't know whether 7-11's lawyers got to them or they just decided that advertising themselves as an inferior knockoff of 7-11 was really pitiful.
On “University reform: Demand driven system has devalued degrees and made some feel like failures”
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, it's far from obvious to me why any of the areas of study discussed, from History to, yes, Video Game Criticism, would necessarily not involve learning to do those things.
On “Kerry’s Regrets About John Edwards”
I gotta say, as soon as I actually got to see him in action, Edwards always really set off my creep radar[1]. Kerry was never anything like my first choice for President in 2004[2], and his inability to get traction in 2008 was heavily overdetermined, but it's really hard for me to see negative commentary about Edwards and not believe it.
[1] And that was despite the fact that I don't think I was aware of his tendency to be racist as hell prior to Vikram Bath mentioning it a few weeks ago on Twitter.
[2] "Let's nominate the jerk from Massachusetts," seems to be how major parties say, "I got nothin'."
On “On Ad Hominems Part 1: The Messy World”
@murali
My problem[1] with Alexander's take is there's a lot of room between lying outright, and tolerating outright lying, and being nice. In particular, he wants to enforce a certain set of norms for discourse, and I don't see how you can really do that without saying, with regards to certain people in certain circumstances, that their conduct makes it so that you shouldn't engage with their arguments.
[1] Well, that and he assumed the bungled calculations about the rate of false rape accusations must be the result of deliberate dishonesty. I think you should never underestimate the ability of people to honestly but completely mangle that sort of computation.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.