You know, I think the contrapositive of that aphorism doesn't get enough recognition: If you're not part of the problem, you're part of the solution. So many problems would go away if people would just mind their own business.
Public school isn't really a public good. It's both rivalrous and excludable. It's really more of a private good funded and provided by the government.
Also, I do think it's hypocritical to oppose vouchers while sending your children to a private school which costs roughly the same as a public school. If you think private school is better than public school, and the government is going to be spending that money anyway, then it should spend it on the better schools. Where Obama has an out, I suspect, is that this particular school is much more expensive than a typical public school, so he can claim that the higher quality is due to the greater expense, and that a private school costing roughly the same as a public school would not.
Or, alternatively, that his daughters have special security needs that the private school is better equipped to provide.
Which is not to say that I don't think the teachers unions calling in a favor plays a role here.
I don't see a real long-term problem here. Jobs that can't be filled won't be filled, and entrepreneurs will find uses for the labor pool we actually have, just as they always have.
Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with an amoral grab by the government for cash wherever it can get it. You can't get blood from a stone, and you can't raise raise revenues equal to a third of GDP with a head tax (arguably a good argument for a head tax, but that's neither here nor there).
But people who advocate that need to acknowledge it for what it is and drop the moralistic BS.
5% of what I paid in prior years. That is, my tax liability declined by 95% year over year.
The point is that this has nothing to do with justice or fairness. There's nothing fair about me getting a free ride while my former coworkers continued paying 20 times more in taxes than I did. It's just an amoral grab by the government for cash wherever it can get it.
I don't drink, and groceries aren't taxed. I paid some property taxes via the rent I paid to my landlord, gasoline taxes, car registration, and sales taxes on what little I spent on taxable goods. But this all adds up to a small fraction, perhaps 5%, of what I paid in taxes in prior years.
Yet I didn't consume any less in government services. I got the government at a 95% discount just because I didn't feel like working.
While I would say low tax rates are “unfair,” what I really mean is that rich people can afford to pay more so they should pay more.
I have a question about this. I took last year off from work. Consequently I have no income and no tax liability for 2011.
Why is it "fair" that when I was working hard to contribute to the economy, I had to pay tens of thousands of dollars per year for the privilege, but that my reward for failing to do a lick of work last year is to get a pass on paying my fair share?
I’m not nearly so cynical as to believe that the average person isn’t smart enough, or couldn’t actually pay enough attention, as to decide whether a said policy is working or not.
Experts can't agree on this stuff. What makes you think that the average person, who doesn't even understand the rudiments of economics or statistics, can do any better?
Seems to me that what Atwater is explicitly saying that it's not really about race anymore. Or that the connection to race is so tenuous and abstract that it might as well not be there at all.
I have read the other comments, and they all seem to me to boil down to confirmation bias. You've made up your mind that Republicans are racist, and that colors your interpretation of everything they say.
I'm not aware of any school of epistemology in which confirmation bias is considered to be a valid tool of cognition.
So it seems to me that his remarks are being mischaracterized. He's not saying that black people just want food stamps. He's saying that that's all that Obama has been able to deliver, and that they deserve better, and should demand better, by ousting Obama and replacing him with Gingrich. Arguably macroeconomically stupid, but not in any way, shape, or form racist.
The "non-white" part is coming from you. You really think that Republicans, or a large subset thereof, hold white welfare recipients in higher esteem than productive black people?
You don’t have to educate me about how the phrase “welfare queen” has a racial connotation...
Honestly, I don't get this at all. When a leftist hears "welfare queen," he immediately thinks "black people"--and that makes the other guy the racist? I'm thinking this might be more Rorshach Blot than dog whistle.
I just don't see why it's so hard to believe that this is really about disdain for people who live on handouts instead of pulling their own weight. I mean, yeah, if you start from the premise that conservatism is just a long-winded way of saying "I hate black people," then I guess you can find things that kind of support that thesis when taken out of context. But leftism doesn't look so great when you start from the premise that it's just a long-winded way of saying "I hate people who are more successful than I am," either.
<i>And so for the past 15 or so years, movement conservative has gone out of its way to transform branding itself as The Party of the Successful, to The Party of the Downtrodden.</i>
Well...no. The branding is more like the Party of the Plucky Underdog. If you're the Downtrodden, you're just a bunch of losers, and no one likes that. If you're the Plucky Underdog, you're holding ground against all odds, and getting ready to go on the offense. The enemy has gotten the upper hand through underhanded means, but if we stick together and do our best, we can win this thing. Or something like that.
And if you think the left doesn't do this, too, you aren't paying attention. Corporate America. The 1%. They're trying to take away Medicare. The primary difference, it seems to me, is that right-wing rhetoric is oriented around how the left is going to prevent you from earning an honest living, and left-wing rhetoric is oriented around how the right is going to take away your handouts.
<i>Ron Paul’s campaign has brought to light that a pleading, focused message that stated “those nice people from the Cosby Show are really The Man – and they’re keeping whitey down!” could bring in major coin.</i>
I don't know how far Newt went, because I've seen like ten different accounts of this, and not one has seen fit to quote or link to Gringrich's original comments. I have no idea what it is that Williams was objecting to.
Eh...I'm not sure what you're talking about, exactly, but I've seen this prinicple invoked far more often in the service of shutting down discussion of valid (or at least arguable) ideas than to dismiss ideas that truly are too repugnant to bother with.
Really, now that I think about it, the notion that an idea which I find offensive must therefore be wrong is utterly foreign to me. Recall that economics came to be called "the dismal science" because Carlyle found its rejection of slavery repugnant.
Well, let's be clear here: The Democrats' economic plan is to take large sums of money from an electorally insignificant minority and spend it on bribing the masses to reelect them. While this may be slightly different from the Republicans' plan, which consists of borrowing money from an electorally insignifiant minority and spending it on bribing the masses to reelect them, I wouldn't say that it's more responsible, necessarily.
Much as I hate to defend the government, I wonder if this was perhaps not entirely involuntary. She did run away from home, and the fact that for the better part of a year she failed to contact her family suggests to me that she wasn't trying all that hard to get home. It's possible that she just thought that a free trip to Colombia sounded like fun and decided to play along.
Of course, I'm not ruling out the possibility that the government really did screw it up that badly. You really can't be too cynical about the government.
It's an issue. It's just not The Issue. All of the candidates are terrible on some issues. Paul is the least terrible on the issues that matter most to me.
Because in the vast majority of cases the mother has some degree of responsibility for the fact that the fetus is in a situation where it cannot survive without the use of her womb, whereas the fetus has none. Only in the case of rape would you have genuinely conflicting rights.
Granted, I don't buy the premise that a fetus has rights. But the argument for banning abortions except in the case of rape (the mother had no choice) or non-trivial risk to the mother's life (which she could not have reasonably foreseen) seems pretty solid to me provided that you do accept that premise.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Insert Your Own McRib Joke Here”
You know, I think the contrapositive of that aphorism doesn't get enough recognition: If you're not part of the problem, you're part of the solution. So many problems would go away if people would just mind their own business.
On “Why Public Education Is Different From Other Public Goods”
Public school isn't really a public good. It's both rivalrous and excludable. It's really more of a private good funded and provided by the government.
Also, I do think it's hypocritical to oppose vouchers while sending your children to a private school which costs roughly the same as a public school. If you think private school is better than public school, and the government is going to be spending that money anyway, then it should spend it on the better schools. Where Obama has an out, I suspect, is that this particular school is much more expensive than a typical public school, so he can claim that the higher quality is due to the greater expense, and that a private school costing roughly the same as a public school would not.
Or, alternatively, that his daughters have special security needs that the private school is better equipped to provide.
Which is not to say that I don't think the teachers unions calling in a favor plays a role here.
On “The Realistic Bigotry of Reality in the Workplace”
I don't see a real long-term problem here. Jobs that can't be filled won't be filled, and entrepreneurs will find uses for the labor pool we actually have, just as they always have.
On “The Margins of the Argument”
Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with an amoral grab by the government for cash wherever it can get it. You can't get blood from a stone, and you can't raise raise revenues equal to a third of GDP with a head tax (arguably a good argument for a head tax, but that's neither here nor there).
But people who advocate that need to acknowledge it for what it is and drop the moralistic BS.
"
5% of what I paid in prior years. That is, my tax liability declined by 95% year over year.
The point is that this has nothing to do with justice or fairness. There's nothing fair about me getting a free ride while my former coworkers continued paying 20 times more in taxes than I did. It's just an amoral grab by the government for cash wherever it can get it.
"
This strikes me as somewhat insane. The government is literally punishing industry and rewarding sloth.
"
I don't drink, and groceries aren't taxed. I paid some property taxes via the rent I paid to my landlord, gasoline taxes, car registration, and sales taxes on what little I spent on taxable goods. But this all adds up to a small fraction, perhaps 5%, of what I paid in taxes in prior years.
Yet I didn't consume any less in government services. I got the government at a 95% discount just because I didn't feel like working.
"
While I would say low tax rates are “unfair,” what I really mean is that rich people can afford to pay more so they should pay more.
I have a question about this. I took last year off from work. Consequently I have no income and no tax liability for 2011.
Why is it "fair" that when I was working hard to contribute to the economy, I had to pay tens of thousands of dollars per year for the privilege, but that my reward for failing to do a lick of work last year is to get a pass on paying my fair share?
"
I’m not nearly so cynical as to believe that the average person isn’t smart enough, or couldn’t actually pay enough attention, as to decide whether a said policy is working or not.
Experts can't agree on this stuff. What makes you think that the average person, who doesn't even understand the rudiments of economics or statistics, can do any better?
On “In Which I Confess An Inability To Decipher Racial Code”
Seems to me that what Atwater is explicitly saying that it's not really about race anymore. Or that the connection to race is so tenuous and abstract that it might as well not be there at all.
"
I have read the other comments, and they all seem to me to boil down to confirmation bias. You've made up your mind that Republicans are racist, and that colors your interpretation of everything they say.
I'm not aware of any school of epistemology in which confirmation bias is considered to be a valid tool of cognition.
"
So it seems to me that his remarks are being mischaracterized. He's not saying that black people just want food stamps. He's saying that that's all that Obama has been able to deliver, and that they deserve better, and should demand better, by ousting Obama and replacing him with Gingrich. Arguably macroeconomically stupid, but not in any way, shape, or form racist.
"
So...confirmation bias, basically.
"
The "non-white" part is coming from you. You really think that Republicans, or a large subset thereof, hold white welfare recipients in higher esteem than productive black people?
"
And by "history of pandering to racist sentiments," you mean saying things like "welfare queens," right?
The "dog whistle" charge is, at best, wildly overused with reckless disregard for the truth.
"
You don’t have to educate me about how the phrase “welfare queen” has a racial connotation...
Honestly, I don't get this at all. When a leftist hears "welfare queen," he immediately thinks "black people"--and that makes the other guy the racist? I'm thinking this might be more Rorshach Blot than dog whistle.
I just don't see why it's so hard to believe that this is really about disdain for people who live on handouts instead of pulling their own weight. I mean, yeah, if you start from the premise that conservatism is just a long-winded way of saying "I hate black people," then I guess you can find things that kind of support that thesis when taken out of context. But leftism doesn't look so great when you start from the premise that it's just a long-winded way of saying "I hate people who are more successful than I am," either.
On “What Martin Luther King, Jr. Taught Today’s Movement Conservatism”
Damn you, wysiwyg editor!
"
<i>And so for the past 15 or so years, movement conservative has gone out of its way to transform branding itself as The Party of the Successful, to The Party of the Downtrodden.</i>
Well...no. The branding is more like the Party of the Plucky Underdog. If you're the Downtrodden, you're just a bunch of losers, and no one likes that. If you're the Plucky Underdog, you're holding ground against all odds, and getting ready to go on the offense. The enemy has gotten the upper hand through underhanded means, but if we stick together and do our best, we can win this thing. Or something like that.
And if you think the left doesn't do this, too, you aren't paying attention. Corporate America. The 1%. They're trying to take away Medicare. The primary difference, it seems to me, is that right-wing rhetoric is oriented around how the left is going to prevent you from earning an honest living, and left-wing rhetoric is oriented around how the right is going to take away your handouts.
<i>Ron Paul’s campaign has brought to light that a pleading, focused message that stated “those nice people from the Cosby Show are really The Man – and they’re keeping whitey down!” could bring in major coin.</i>
Citation needed.
"
I don't know how far Newt went, because I've seen like ten different accounts of this, and not one has seen fit to quote or link to Gringrich's original comments. I have no idea what it is that Williams was objecting to.
On “Don’t Be a Tellarite”
Eh...I'm not sure what you're talking about, exactly, but I've seen this prinicple invoked far more often in the service of shutting down discussion of valid (or at least arguable) ideas than to dismiss ideas that truly are too repugnant to bother with.
Really, now that I think about it, the notion that an idea which I find offensive must therefore be wrong is utterly foreign to me. Recall that economics came to be called "the dismal science" because Carlyle found its rejection of slavery repugnant.
On “The Future of the GOP”
Well, let's be clear here: The Democrats' economic plan is to take large sums of money from an electorally insignificant minority and spend it on bribing the masses to reelect them. While this may be slightly different from the Republicans' plan, which consists of borrowing money from an electorally insignifiant minority and spending it on bribing the masses to reelect them, I wouldn't say that it's more responsible, necessarily.
On “She Was An American Girl Raised On Promises (Of Due Process)”
Much as I hate to defend the government, I wonder if this was perhaps not entirely involuntary. She did run away from home, and the fact that for the better part of a year she failed to contact her family suggests to me that she wasn't trying all that hard to get home. It's possible that she just thought that a free trip to Colombia sounded like fun and decided to play along.
Of course, I'm not ruling out the possibility that the government really did screw it up that badly. You really can't be too cynical about the government.
On “Montana Dissed Citizens United”
I think everyone should have the right to say absolutely anything I want them to say.
On “Reproductive Rights and Libertarianism”
It's an issue. It's just not The Issue. All of the candidates are terrible on some issues. Paul is the least terrible on the issues that matter most to me.
"
Because in the vast majority of cases the mother has some degree of responsibility for the fact that the fetus is in a situation where it cannot survive without the use of her womb, whereas the fetus has none. Only in the case of rape would you have genuinely conflicting rights.
Granted, I don't buy the premise that a fetus has rights. But the argument for banning abortions except in the case of rape (the mother had no choice) or non-trivial risk to the mother's life (which she could not have reasonably foreseen) seems pretty solid to me provided that you do accept that premise.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.