My problem isn't whether people would be calling for blood, because in any of these situations, some do and others don't. It's certainly not obviously the case that a conservative student or professor wouldn't find a lot of defenders for racist or homophobic speech.
It's more that the people who seem to be the most willing to accept and articulate that stuff that might at first glance look not-racist is racist-as-hell in context seem to be ignorant (all too often willfully ignorant) of how similar dynamics can play out with anti-semitism.
It's less, "Won't do," than, "Can it conceivably do."
For instance, how is he going to implement free-at-point-of-service "Medicare for all"? Even if he had the kind of Congressional majorities that Obama did in 2008, there's no way that could pass, and it's really not clear (to put it mildly) that it would work as described.
His plan to break up "too big to fail" banks is... seriously underspecified, and really only plausible when compared to Trump's fantasies about the wall.
My biggest (or perhaps second biggest) objection to Sanders is that he's also constantly claiming he'll do things the President can't do. Less awful things than Trump, sure, but building fantasy castles out of rainbows is not that much more worthwhile than building them out of bile.
That two-parter was always one of the high points of the show for me. It was a fitting end for Sinclair's story: he was constantly looking for ways to sacrifice himself for a cause, just like the Minbari religious caste.
It is sad to see so many people, including those on the Left or in the Democratic Party, criticize the idea of a Trump presidency without ever uttering the phrase: “No man or woman should have so much political power over others.”
This is truly strange, given that many of the criticisms of Trump focus on the fact that he claims he'll be able to do a ton of shit that he won't actually be able to do.
Cowan remembers Trump is the, "Build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it," guy, right? It seems like it would be hard to forget, but I still feel the need to double-check after reading that.
How do you propose to stop the public censure? Unlike the law, which is subject to political change and constitutional restraints, the power of public censure is in and of itself a product of those constitutional restraints. The only way to restrain it would be through informal social norms, and, I argue, new informal social norms. In the meantime, people are likely going to feel, often with good reason, that those social norms aren't going to protect them, either because they're "beneath notice" or because the people they're most worried about show that they're completely unconcerned with any sensible standard of decency.
This means that what you're really asking is that people unilaterally disarm against people who have every intention of using social censure against them.
The only shift I see is that the behavior being defined as "bad" is different.
It's only become legal for members of the armed forces to be openly gay for, what, 5 years? States had sodomy laws on the books until about 15 years ago. Employers can still terminate employees just for being gay in most of the country, and it's not like that's a thing that never happens, either.
The other issue (which is harder to explore) is how much of political distrust is serving as a basis for distrust of other tribes. Republicans are largely a white Americans. The Democratic Party base is largely African-American, Asian-American, Latino-American, Jewish, LGBT, and college-educated professionals.
Yeah, it seems like partisan affiliation makes a good proxy for other things, especially race and religion. I always wonder to what extent political animus allows people to express animus against racial or religious out groups in more socially acceptable way.
Also, re: Milo and the "alt-right", I can't say I didn't get a good laugh out of this.
What I'm trying to get it is that, evidently, a lot of federal laws aimed at, say, protecting the environment[1] actually include the potential of lengthy prison terms for individuals, while lacking the need for intent that usually goes along with the sorts of laws that get you sent up for a long time if you break them. I'm much more comfortable with fines in such instances.
This is, IMO, a fixable flaw with how our particular form of regulatory state, not an inherent shortcoming of the basic idea of regulation.
[1] One of the most defensible goals of regulation, IMO!
Bad-Ass Motherfisher:
Yeah, wow.One protest, no shootings. This proves that public display of firearms is not dangerous.
Surely if nobody was hurt this time, that proves what these people were doing wasn't irresponsible or dangerous. I think there's a somewhat plausible argument that all involved were just exercising their First and Second Amendment rights, but just because something is legal and even guaranteed by the Constitution doesn't mean it's not stupid.
Jaybird: And if the majority of Republicans see themselves as Conservative and the majority of Democrats see themselves as moderate, who am I to disagree with them?
That's my policy, too, but because this is an Internet forum, I feel compelled to be thoroughly pedantic about what it means. It's just that there is no majority in the Democratic Party. A plurality are liberals, but there's a big enough rump of conservative Democrats to make it so the median member is a moderate.
Either way, I think this offers a much more useful answer as to why the Democratic Party doesn't govern in a way that represents liberal priorities.
There are plenty of moderates in the Republican Party, but there are more in the Democratic Party, both as a fraction of the party and in absolute numbers. In intra-party debates over policy and priorities, moderates seem to have a lot more power in the Democratic Party, because you can't even get a majority of the Democratic Party without them, and because you have a greater need of their support.
This is my personal perception, but it's also what you get out of polling data on self-identification, and it's a pretty natural consequence of the fact that there are a lot more conservatives than liberals overall.
DavidTC:
There’s not really any ‘additional’ force at all. The amount of force of the government demanding X dollars a year and 2X dollars are a year in taxes are *exactly the same amount of force*.
In practice, you may have to deal with more tax evasion with higher taxes, and you often raise revenue with different kinds of taxes that need to be enforced. None of this is limited to robust welfare spending, of course; any kind of government spending will tend to require it.
There's also a possible need to prevent people fraudulently collecting payments from the welfare state. A lot this is penny-ante bullshit that isn't worth the effort of dealing with, but there have been some eye-wateringly huge Medicare scams, for instance.
In both cases it's a small increment beyond what you have already.
I’d argue that applies to many regulations. I do agree with many folks of a more libertarian bent than myself that the actual regulatory structures we have in the US tend to rely on criminalization gratuitously, making our governments in particular more violent than they should be.
I’m not quite sure why you think that. When it comes to regulating *corporations*, that regulation is almost entirely via fines, and that almost never turns into any force at all.
Sure. And a lot of the criminal laws are rarely if ever used, but I'm not a big fan of having a bunch of rarely or never-enforced laws just hanging around on the books. It seems (and I could be mistaken as IANAL) that there are a lot of laws, especially federal laws, that serve a regulatory purpose and are like that.
I'm much less concerned by corporate regulation from that angle, though obviously some of it is dumb or inefficient or just there to help incumbent interests in a given market, just like some of it is woefully inadequate or riddled with loopholes.
That's one way of looking at it. Another way is simply that the identification between "conservative" and "Republican" is much stronger than the identification between "liberal" and "Democrat". I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say the Democratic Party is a "moderate" party, either--more that there's a lot more internal tension between the two than there is among Republicans.
Or I would have said that pre-Trump. But it seems that "conservative" was covering a lot of internal divisions, hence (among other things) Mr Rutt's and Mr Scotto's posts.
Some of the things individuals would need to do in such a system--like negotiation, writing contracts and ensuring compliance, et c.--are specialized in and of themselves. Also, s sort of naive wild-assed-guess, I'd think the model of selling shares in limited liability corporations, which is such a cornerstone of contemporary capitalism, is a lot easier with bigger firms, for a lot of reasons.
It's backed by force, and (I'd argue) the most basic functions are the ones that depend most strongly on force, and that has a lot to do with why I object to the common libertarian and, for that matter, conservative contention that there's some connection between the scope of services a government provides and the danger it poses. The powers a government has that allow it to enforce the basic laws necessary to maintain order and defend itself from being overthrown are really the ones that make it possible for it to round people up and kill them.
The additional amount of force and potential violence that a government needs to, say, administer a robust welfare state, is pretty small. I'd argue that applies to many regulations. I do agree with many folks of a more libertarian bent than myself that the actual regulatory structures we have in the US tend to rely on criminalization gratuitously, making our governments in particular more violent than they should be.
Yeah, I totally missed the boat on Japan (don't know which other system I was confusing it).
In any event, this is why I was acknowledging up front that there's debate about where the boundaries are. Supplemental insurance is very common, as is substantial out-of-pocket cost. Medicare--which is often what progressives use as a starting point for single payer--has coinsurance and copays, too, and that reflects the fact that they are usually arguing for the government to act as a really big insurance company.
The Sanders plan purports to eliminate out-of-pocket costs entirely while keeping many other features of that model. I don't think doing so is necessary for a plan to be any of universal, single-payer or, well, good. Indeed, I think having modest out-of-pocket costs at the point of service is probably for the best.
I would argue the UK, South Korea, Canada, Australia and Japan all qualify as single-payer systems, though there's room for debate about exactly where the boundaries are.
Nonetheless, my biggest, fondest dream is not a single-payer health care system. Multi-payer systems work well in many countries.
Jaybird:
I appreciate that Libs are about as well-represented in government as Cons.
That said, if it’s fair to point to the Republicans when we talk about what Conservatives, in practice, are like, I’d like to know why we can’t point to the Dems when we talk about what Liberals, in practice, are like?
Because the Democrats are not a liberal party in the same way that the Republicans are a conservative party.
We're part of a coalition that includes a large number of self-described moderates and not a few self-described conservatives, as shown by polls like this one. The Democratic Party is more liberal than it was, but we're not even a majority, just a plurality. In the GOP, on the other hand, conservatives outnumber moderates and the tiny sliver of liberals by two to one.
This seems as good a place as any to bring up my biggest complaint about Bernie Sanders, which is that he's the Jack Kemp of the left. I get the same sense of sincerity and, yes, messianic zeal from him. I remember Dole's choice of Kemp as a VP really turned me off in '96, to the extent that I decided there was little value in replacing the marginally acceptable Clinton and sat out the first Presidential election where I was eligible to vote.
My policy preferences have changed a lot since I was in my late teens, but I still worry about that kind of zeal. Suffice it to say that, liberal as I may be, I am distinctly not feeling the Bern.
Saying that liberals haven’t proposed total gov’t control is kinda like say the repubs haven’t proposed nazism.
No it isn't, if the charge is that liberals want no limits on government. The charge that conservatives want no limits on government wouldn't be correct, either, although as a liberal, I think conservatives often try to limit government in ways that are pointless or counterproductive, while removing limits on government that really should be there.
On “Morning Ed: Society {2016.04.14.Th}”
My problem isn't whether people would be calling for blood, because in any of these situations, some do and others don't. It's certainly not obviously the case that a conservative student or professor wouldn't find a lot of defenders for racist or homophobic speech.
It's more that the people who seem to be the most willing to accept and articulate that stuff that might at first glance look not-racist is racist-as-hell in context seem to be ignorant (all too often willfully ignorant) of how similar dynamics can play out with anti-semitism.
On “Elizabeth Warren has a great idea for making Tax Day less painful – Vox”
"Let's just start a big IT project that makes this easy," has replaced, "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter," as the motto over the gates of Hell.
Why not just simplify the eligibility requirements and advertise the existing program better?
On “The criticism of Trump which few will utter – Marginal Revolution”
It's less, "Won't do," than, "Can it conceivably do."
For instance, how is he going to implement free-at-point-of-service "Medicare for all"? Even if he had the kind of Congressional majorities that Obama did in 2008, there's no way that could pass, and it's really not clear (to put it mildly) that it would work as described.
His plan to break up "too big to fail" banks is... seriously underspecified, and really only plausible when compared to Trump's fantasies about the wall.
"
My biggest (or perhaps second biggest) objection to Sanders is that he's also constantly claiming he'll do things the President can't do. Less awful things than Trump, sure, but building fantasy castles out of rainbows is not that much more worthwhile than building them out of bile.
On “Babylonia!”
That two-parter was always one of the high points of the show for me. It was a fitting end for Sinclair's story: he was constantly looking for ways to sacrifice himself for a cause, just like the Minbari religious caste.
On “The criticism of Trump which few will utter – Marginal Revolution”
It is sad to see so many people, including those on the Left or in the Democratic Party, criticize the idea of a Trump presidency without ever uttering the phrase: “No man or woman should have so much political power over others.”
This is truly strange, given that many of the criticisms of Trump focus on the fact that he claims he'll be able to do a ton of shit that he won't actually be able to do.
Cowan remembers Trump is the, "Build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it," guy, right? It seems like it would be hard to forget, but I still feel the need to double-check after reading that.
On “Morning Ed: Politics {2016.04.05.T}”
How do you propose to stop the public censure? Unlike the law, which is subject to political change and constitutional restraints, the power of public censure is in and of itself a product of those constitutional restraints. The only way to restrain it would be through informal social norms, and, I argue, new informal social norms. In the meantime, people are likely going to feel, often with good reason, that those social norms aren't going to protect them, either because they're "beneath notice" or because the people they're most worried about show that they're completely unconcerned with any sensible standard of decency.
This means that what you're really asking is that people unilaterally disarm against people who have every intention of using social censure against them.
"
The only shift I see is that the behavior being defined as "bad" is different.
It's only become legal for members of the armed forces to be openly gay for, what, 5 years? States had sodomy laws on the books until about 15 years ago. Employers can still terminate employees just for being gay in most of the country, and it's not like that's a thing that never happens, either.
"
The other issue (which is harder to explore) is how much of political distrust is serving as a basis for distrust of other tribes. Republicans are largely a white Americans. The Democratic Party base is largely African-American, Asian-American, Latino-American, Jewish, LGBT, and college-educated professionals.
Yeah, it seems like partisan affiliation makes a good proxy for other things, especially race and religion. I always wonder to what extent political animus allows people to express animus against racial or religious out groups in more socially acceptable way.
Also, re: Milo and the "alt-right", I can't say I didn't get a good laugh out of this.
On “Armed clash over black mosque triggers anger in South Dallas | | Dallas Morning News”
Label the New Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam as extremist groups...?
On “Seeing Through the Unseen”
What I'm trying to get it is that, evidently, a lot of federal laws aimed at, say, protecting the environment[1] actually include the potential of lengthy prison terms for individuals, while lacking the need for intent that usually goes along with the sorts of laws that get you sent up for a long time if you break them. I'm much more comfortable with fines in such instances.
This is, IMO, a fixable flaw with how our particular form of regulatory state, not an inherent shortcoming of the basic idea of regulation.
[1] One of the most defensible goals of regulation, IMO!
On “Armed clash over black mosque triggers anger in South Dallas | | Dallas Morning News”
Surely if nobody was hurt this time, that proves what these people were doing wasn't irresponsible or dangerous. I think there's a somewhat plausible argument that all involved were just exercising their First and Second Amendment rights, but just because something is legal and even guaranteed by the Constitution doesn't mean it's not stupid.
On “Seeing Through the Unseen”
That's my policy, too, but because this is an Internet forum, I feel compelled to be thoroughly pedantic about what it means. It's just that there is no majority in the Democratic Party. A plurality are liberals, but there's a big enough rump of conservative Democrats to make it so the median member is a moderate.
Either way, I think this offers a much more useful answer as to why the Democratic Party doesn't govern in a way that represents liberal priorities.
"
There are plenty of moderates in the Republican Party, but there are more in the Democratic Party, both as a fraction of the party and in absolute numbers. In intra-party debates over policy and priorities, moderates seem to have a lot more power in the Democratic Party, because you can't even get a majority of the Democratic Party without them, and because you have a greater need of their support.
This is my personal perception, but it's also what you get out of polling data on self-identification, and it's a pretty natural consequence of the fact that there are a lot more conservatives than liberals overall.
"
In practice, you may have to deal with more tax evasion with higher taxes, and you often raise revenue with different kinds of taxes that need to be enforced. None of this is limited to robust welfare spending, of course; any kind of government spending will tend to require it.
There's also a possible need to prevent people fraudulently collecting payments from the welfare state. A lot this is penny-ante bullshit that isn't worth the effort of dealing with, but there have been some eye-wateringly huge Medicare scams, for instance.
In both cases it's a small increment beyond what you have already.
Sure. And a lot of the criminal laws are rarely if ever used, but I'm not a big fan of having a bunch of rarely or never-enforced laws just hanging around on the books. It seems (and I could be mistaken as IANAL) that there are a lot of laws, especially federal laws, that serve a regulatory purpose and are like that.
I'm much less concerned by corporate regulation from that angle, though obviously some of it is dumb or inefficient or just there to help incumbent interests in a given market, just like some of it is woefully inadequate or riddled with loopholes.
"
That's one way of looking at it. Another way is simply that the identification between "conservative" and "Republican" is much stronger than the identification between "liberal" and "Democrat". I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say the Democratic Party is a "moderate" party, either--more that there's a lot more internal tension between the two than there is among Republicans.
Or I would have said that pre-Trump. But it seems that "conservative" was covering a lot of internal divisions, hence (among other things) Mr Rutt's and Mr Scotto's posts.
On “Megan McArdle: Listen to the Victims of the Free Market”
Some of the things individuals would need to do in such a system--like negotiation, writing contracts and ensuring compliance, et c.--are specialized in and of themselves. Also, s sort of naive wild-assed-guess, I'd think the model of selling shares in limited liability corporations, which is such a cornerstone of contemporary capitalism, is a lot easier with bigger firms, for a lot of reasons.
On “Armed clash over black mosque triggers anger in South Dallas | | Dallas Morning News”
I'm glad to see that when a bunch of armed lunatics stage a protest, they can now count on another band of armed lunatics staging a counter-protest.
Surely this will end well.
On “Seeing Through the Unseen”
It's backed by force, and (I'd argue) the most basic functions are the ones that depend most strongly on force, and that has a lot to do with why I object to the common libertarian and, for that matter, conservative contention that there's some connection between the scope of services a government provides and the danger it poses. The powers a government has that allow it to enforce the basic laws necessary to maintain order and defend itself from being overthrown are really the ones that make it possible for it to round people up and kill them.
The additional amount of force and potential violence that a government needs to, say, administer a robust welfare state, is pretty small. I'd argue that applies to many regulations. I do agree with many folks of a more libertarian bent than myself that the actual regulatory structures we have in the US tend to rely on criminalization gratuitously, making our governments in particular more violent than they should be.
"
Yeah, I totally missed the boat on Japan (don't know which other system I was confusing it).
In any event, this is why I was acknowledging up front that there's debate about where the boundaries are. Supplemental insurance is very common, as is substantial out-of-pocket cost. Medicare--which is often what progressives use as a starting point for single payer--has coinsurance and copays, too, and that reflects the fact that they are usually arguing for the government to act as a really big insurance company.
The Sanders plan purports to eliminate out-of-pocket costs entirely while keeping many other features of that model. I don't think doing so is necessary for a plan to be any of universal, single-payer or, well, good. Indeed, I think having modest out-of-pocket costs at the point of service is probably for the best.
"
I would argue the UK, South Korea, Canada, Australia and Japan all qualify as single-payer systems, though there's room for debate about exactly where the boundaries are.
Nonetheless, my biggest, fondest dream is not a single-payer health care system. Multi-payer systems work well in many countries.
"
Because the Democrats are not a liberal party in the same way that the Republicans are a conservative party.
We're part of a coalition that includes a large number of self-described moderates and not a few self-described conservatives, as shown by polls like this one. The Democratic Party is more liberal than it was, but we're not even a majority, just a plurality. In the GOP, on the other hand, conservatives outnumber moderates and the tiny sliver of liberals by two to one.
"
This seems as good a place as any to bring up my biggest complaint about Bernie Sanders, which is that he's the Jack Kemp of the left. I get the same sense of sincerity and, yes, messianic zeal from him. I remember Dole's choice of Kemp as a VP really turned me off in '96, to the extent that I decided there was little value in replacing the marginally acceptable Clinton and sat out the first Presidential election where I was eligible to vote.
My policy preferences have changed a lot since I was in my late teens, but I still worry about that kind of zeal. Suffice it to say that, liberal as I may be, I am distinctly not feeling the Bern.
"
Saying that liberals haven’t proposed total gov’t control is kinda like say the repubs haven’t proposed nazism.
No it isn't, if the charge is that liberals want no limits on government. The charge that conservatives want no limits on government wouldn't be correct, either, although as a liberal, I think conservatives often try to limit government in ways that are pointless or counterproductive, while removing limits on government that really should be there.
On “Megan McArdle: Listen to the Victims of the Free Market”
Transaction costs and specialization?
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