Worth reading on this issue is Savage Continent by Keith Lowe. The occupation of post war Europe and the settling of various little local and regional conflicts wasn't nearly as clean as in the popular American imagination of it.
I agree and disagree. On the one hand you're right. Underemployed lawyers aren't ever going to top anyone's list of people we should have sympathy for. A lot of the scam blog whining is insufferable, and given that most people who attend law school have at least middle class backgrounds, most do have the resources to figure something else out even if the debt will always be an encumberance.
On the other hand I think there's some blaming the victim going on. The law school situation is an extreme microcosm of the structural problems we have in higher education generally. People take on high debt in the hopes of jobs that aren't there or don't pay enough to make the debt worth it. Even the ones who come out on top don't have the ability to consume the way their parents did which has rippling effects throughout the economy.
When I started law school it was considered a mercenary move, everyone told me how smart I was being. During the time I was in the bottom fell out of the industry and an outdated model crumbled into something much less auspicious than what it had been. People who used to think it was a great idea roll their eyes at it now, in light of better media reporting on the trade-offs, none of which existed when I was considering applying to law school.
Now we talk about the STEM shortage (and tomorrow it'll be some other shortage) which may or may not exist and are going to put a lot of people into debt to fill those jobs. The thing is those industries might also change in profound ways that few had foreseen.
Then we will decide if we should roll our eyes and laugh at the comeuppance of those rubes who made such stupid, short sighted decisions or if we should do some serious thinking about how we finance higher education. I know which I think is more likely.
Georgetown is indeed a top law school. That's all awesome for her (no sarcasm at all). I'm sure it took serious intelligence and working her ass off to get there and I never begrudge anyone their success.
I will say it sounds like she was able to follow the track of roughly what most people think they will do when they graduate. What seems to hit a lot of people hard (in addition to the hellish debt) is getting out into an industry completely different from what you prepared for. I was lucky that like your sister I worked for a couple years before taking the law school plunge so it wasn't as shocking for me when the world turned out to be a bit different. I think it can be harder to swallow for a lot of the K-JD crowd.
I have heard there are similar debt-income issues with veterinarians but suspect there is less griping since at least most of them are doing largely what they thought they'd be.
Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like your sister made it to big or at least medium law right out of school? That in itself makes her experience atypical in that she probably started off in a much better position to deal with her debt plus something on her resume that would get her in the door at desirable places. This isn't to say there aren't a lot of challenges for those attorneys but at least you're kind of doing what you probably thought you'd be and the money is good.
The reality for many, maybe most new lawyers, especially those from lower tier schools, is years in some combination of temp work and what we in the industry refer to as shit law (low level crim, family, and real estate work, often with eat what you kill compensation structures). The jobs are low paying, inconsistent, and thankless. And thats if you can even land a job that requires a JD and/or license at all.
This results in a lot of people bitter about being sold on a false bag of goods. Law schools recruit people on fantasies of a JD as sort of a BA plus for humanities people who aren't quite sure what to do after college. This wouldn't necessarily be so bad if not for the high premium schools get away with charging due to outdated perceptions of what law is and what lawyers earn.
As for my personal experience I really enjoy research, writing, and negotiating so in house has turned out to be ok for me. That said, it's not the dream I had of being in court everyday, sticking it to prosecutors and cops (something that strangely never actually happened even in my defense days) and I despise the asinine culture of corporate America I'm stuck in. But it turns out that's the price of paying off my debt and having a moderately comfortable standard of living. Of course it took a lot of hard work and some very lucky breaks to even make it to a compromise I can live with. A lot of post 2008 grads never even get this far. Believe me, I know plenty of people in 6 figures of debt still out trying to hustle for 45-70k a year.
I think all of that is true but also beside the point. I'm not that interested in what Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) say they believe but rather in what they actually do when they have power. I see the fact that the electorate largely associates the GOP with fiscal restraint as one of the more baffling triumphs of rhetoric over substance in American political debate.
Like Jaybird said, the GOP is winning which is probably the only principle they care about.
I also think the divide between the theory of small government versus what Republicans actually do while in power is nothing new. It seems bigger right now because of Trump's... idiosyncrasies but think back to the Bush years. Partial privatization of social security failed and a giant new entitlement was created (Medicare pt. D). The administrative state ballooned after 9/11 and we embarked on 2 unfinanced expeditionary wars. As best as I can tell 'limited government' from the lips of a Republican just means they'll get rid of or defuned parts of the state they don't like and spend like wild on those pieces they do, without regard for any sort of fiscal implications or or exercise of discipline.
Paul the younger is sadly much less principled than Paul the elder. I feel like Ron would've given the C-Span cameraman a lecture on the Treaty of Westphalia, the likes of which he'd never heard.
I remember it. I wonder if anyone reconsidered their opinion on the 2004 NATO expansion and the proposal to put missile defenses in south eastern Europe that was getting so much attention at the time. Opinions change, man.
Do opinions change, or are most people just largely ignorant and/or intentionally obtuse about long standing geopolitical tensions until they find their way into asinine partisan politics?
I think you're right on the characterization of Trump as buffoon and poorly suited to being lead diplomat but the analysis of Russia I think is much more complex. You don't have to think highly of Putin's corrupt and authoritarian government to be critical of how the West has played it's hand after the Cold War. From their perspective we've marched NATO right up to their borders and taken provocative actions in places where they have interests, like Georgia, Syria and Ukraine.
Now I'm not going to pretend Russia's motives are anything other than self interested but I do think we ought to consider the role of American policy in creating and escalating these situations. We wouldn't like it if a power we perceived as threatening took the kind of actions we regularly do in our neighborhood. I mean, look at the response to alleged Russian meddling in our own politics. Why should they feel differently?
This is just plain false. The only reason Obama didn't intervene more was because Congress wouldn't authorize it on the terms he wanted in 2013. And even that didn't stop his administration from airstrikes and arming radical militants, a policy I'm certain the Trump administration will continue and possibly escalate .
The counter-point to that would be the criticism that arose of Trump's camp (allegedly) being the source of the decision to keep providing lethal aid to Kiev out of the Republican platform. It isnt boots on the ground but it would escalate the conflict, probably in much the same manner Obama's policy of arming extremists in Syria threw more fuel on that fire.
It isnt necessarily a call for war coming from the Democrats but there's definitely a change in stance of some kind in progress. Remember when Mitt Romney was a fool for identifying Russia as America's greatest adversary?
In Vikram's post about voter turnout he linked to a Salon piece that I think is persuasive on that issue. Specifically it distinguishes 'progressive fashion police' from political liberalism. There are seriously sexist aspects of Republican preferred policies and Trump himself I think is a sexist, but I also think the 'people didn't vote for Hilary due to profound widespread personal sexism across the electorate' theory is weak, or at least extremely incomplete, for exactly the reasons you mention.
I demur on the larger issue of whether or not Democrats are sufficiently aggressive but I think part of the problem was that Clinton, due to her own baggage, was unable to get too mean without looking hypocritical herself. Take the sexism/womanizing issue. Of course she shouldn't be blamed for the sins of her husband but could she plausibly hammer Trump on that with Bill's own past, and her defense of him in particular? I'm not so sure, especially, when Trump has the whole cast and crew from the 90s reunited in the wings.
And that's without even getting into some of the more substantive policy issues.
'Trump's foreign policy is not only dangerous, it's foolish and he's putting the future of our country and global system at risk.'
'Says the woman who voted to invade Iraq and gave the guns to the Islamist extremists. THAT'S RIGHT I SAID ISLAMIST!'
Then you get into questions about how such a motivation might impact the outcome, and our system as a whole. What if the election was swung by the 'I just came here for my free brew crowd'?
The road to functioning republic has many pitfalls.
I think this captures a lot of it. Combine the lack of clear personal benefit/ineffectiveness of the act for many people with apathy, lack of information, and inconvenience and it's almost a wonder that millions of people still do it. I also agree with your implication that this is not a good thing.
What I'd be curious to see is what proportion of the non-voting population live in gerrymandered safe districts and/or states that aren't in play in a presidential election. I live in such a place. I vote out of a stubborn and possibly misplaced sense of civic duty combined with the fact that my vote may matter for local initiatives.
My wife on the other hand tends to sit them out for the simple reason that, other than situations where the democratic party insults it's own constituency by not even pretending to contest the election (see Anthony Brown, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend), most of the time her vote does not matter. On the other hand she was much more active when she lived across the river where the outcome isn't always a given.
The final point I think is the big one. Maybe someone can correct me but I'm not aware of any real limits on government loans to finance tuition. Part of the answer has to involve some type of cost controls that make educational institutions consider costs on students. Right now the federal spigot keeps these entities (and the states that run most of universities) from having to make hard choices.
Thinking out loud but In healthcare we have a relatively new concept of an ACO that theoretically incentivizes keeping costs down. Maybe there's a similar idea for education out there where schools are given a lump sum payment, independently calculated based on major or something similar, and the school then has to educate the student with that money and nothing else. Whatever portion of that sum isn't necessary for the student can be reinvested as the school sees fit.
There are of course loads of details about fraud and keeping standards up (i.e. preventinf these institutions from becoming degree mills in a race to the bottom) but maybe it's a start.
Stuff like this makes me thankful for the first amendment. Our European friends may do some things better than we do, but man can they get it ridiculously wrong. Every MEP who voted for this is a coward and is doing no favors for liberalism. The ones who lose to FN or AfD and the other right wing populists deserve it.
I think you're right and I think its one of the many reasons Trump is destined to disappoint most of his supporters.
From am even bigger picture perspective I think that kind of inequality is exactly why the more libertarian minded should be more concerned about it. I'm not sure that our form of government can function when inequality is stretched too far. I think it invites all kinds of abuse and petty tyranny. The kind of stuff where libertarian critiques are the most convincing.
I'm not saying that the target of the anger is completely rational, or that it isn't also wrapped up in certain rural/small town versus urban cultural resentments and contradictions. White collar urban professionals with some cultural capital are one of the scapegoats, as are illegal aliens and other immigrants (albeit for different reasons). Just because aspects of the criticism aren't valid doesn't mean there's nothing to them. Hell I think us coastal professional types are too easily bought off by the actual elites in this country just because they speak our language, i.e. the super wealthy in big finance, corporate America, and at the top tiers of the federal government.
As for the sensitivity regarding finance, I kind of think thats a personal problem. Where anti-Semitism appears push back. It's wrong and stupid, but I don't think anyone should back off on asking hard questions about why exactly there haven't been any consequences for Wall Street, and I'm certainly not going to read anti-Semitism into those criticisms where there's no evidence of it.
I think the additional component driving the anger described in the article is increasing awareness that economic inequality results in different treatment by our various institutions, public and private. This is a serious problem in a country where equality before the law (even if not in means) is culturally enshrined.
Now there are plenty of historically disadvantaged groups in this country for whom this is not news, but in the last 30 years it has come to white middle America. No one can play it off anymore after 2008. So I think there are really 2 issues to contend with, the first being economic insecurity but the second being cognizant of the fact that coastal elites, particularly in government and high finance, aren't subject to the same rules as everyone else.
You can be relatively well off from a historical perspective but still seething with rage when the precarious of your particular situation compared to that of others appears to you to result from inconsistent application of the rules.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Morning Ed: World {2017.03.22.W}”
Worth reading on this issue is Savage Continent by Keith Lowe. The occupation of post war Europe and the settling of various little local and regional conflicts wasn't nearly as clean as in the popular American imagination of it.
On “Will Dropping the LSAT Requirement Create More Miserable Lawyers?”
I agree and disagree. On the one hand you're right. Underemployed lawyers aren't ever going to top anyone's list of people we should have sympathy for. A lot of the scam blog whining is insufferable, and given that most people who attend law school have at least middle class backgrounds, most do have the resources to figure something else out even if the debt will always be an encumberance.
On the other hand I think there's some blaming the victim going on. The law school situation is an extreme microcosm of the structural problems we have in higher education generally. People take on high debt in the hopes of jobs that aren't there or don't pay enough to make the debt worth it. Even the ones who come out on top don't have the ability to consume the way their parents did which has rippling effects throughout the economy.
When I started law school it was considered a mercenary move, everyone told me how smart I was being. During the time I was in the bottom fell out of the industry and an outdated model crumbled into something much less auspicious than what it had been. People who used to think it was a great idea roll their eyes at it now, in light of better media reporting on the trade-offs, none of which existed when I was considering applying to law school.
Now we talk about the STEM shortage (and tomorrow it'll be some other shortage) which may or may not exist and are going to put a lot of people into debt to fill those jobs. The thing is those industries might also change in profound ways that few had foreseen.
Then we will decide if we should roll our eyes and laugh at the comeuppance of those rubes who made such stupid, short sighted decisions or if we should do some serious thinking about how we finance higher education. I know which I think is more likely.
"
Georgetown is indeed a top law school. That's all awesome for her (no sarcasm at all). I'm sure it took serious intelligence and working her ass off to get there and I never begrudge anyone their success.
I will say it sounds like she was able to follow the track of roughly what most people think they will do when they graduate. What seems to hit a lot of people hard (in addition to the hellish debt) is getting out into an industry completely different from what you prepared for. I was lucky that like your sister I worked for a couple years before taking the law school plunge so it wasn't as shocking for me when the world turned out to be a bit different. I think it can be harder to swallow for a lot of the K-JD crowd.
I have heard there are similar debt-income issues with veterinarians but suspect there is less griping since at least most of them are doing largely what they thought they'd be.
"
@kazzy
Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like your sister made it to big or at least medium law right out of school? That in itself makes her experience atypical in that she probably started off in a much better position to deal with her debt plus something on her resume that would get her in the door at desirable places. This isn't to say there aren't a lot of challenges for those attorneys but at least you're kind of doing what you probably thought you'd be and the money is good.
The reality for many, maybe most new lawyers, especially those from lower tier schools, is years in some combination of temp work and what we in the industry refer to as shit law (low level crim, family, and real estate work, often with eat what you kill compensation structures). The jobs are low paying, inconsistent, and thankless. And thats if you can even land a job that requires a JD and/or license at all.
This results in a lot of people bitter about being sold on a false bag of goods. Law schools recruit people on fantasies of a JD as sort of a BA plus for humanities people who aren't quite sure what to do after college. This wouldn't necessarily be so bad if not for the high premium schools get away with charging due to outdated perceptions of what law is and what lawyers earn.
As for my personal experience I really enjoy research, writing, and negotiating so in house has turned out to be ok for me. That said, it's not the dream I had of being in court everyday, sticking it to prosecutors and cops (something that strangely never actually happened even in my defense days) and I despise the asinine culture of corporate America I'm stuck in. But it turns out that's the price of paying off my debt and having a moderately comfortable standard of living. Of course it took a lot of hard work and some very lucky breaks to even make it to a compromise I can live with. A lot of post 2008 grads never even get this far. Believe me, I know plenty of people in 6 figures of debt still out trying to hustle for 45-70k a year.
On “Conservatives should look to Robert Peel”
I think all of that is true but also beside the point. I'm not that interested in what Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) say they believe but rather in what they actually do when they have power. I see the fact that the electorate largely associates the GOP with fiscal restraint as one of the more baffling triumphs of rhetoric over substance in American political debate.
"
Like Jaybird said, the GOP is winning which is probably the only principle they care about.
I also think the divide between the theory of small government versus what Republicans actually do while in power is nothing new. It seems bigger right now because of Trump's... idiosyncrasies but think back to the Bush years. Partial privatization of social security failed and a giant new entitlement was created (Medicare pt. D). The administrative state ballooned after 9/11 and we embarked on 2 unfinanced expeditionary wars. As best as I can tell 'limited government' from the lips of a Republican just means they'll get rid of or defuned parts of the state they don't like and spend like wild on those pieces they do, without regard for any sort of fiscal implications or or exercise of discipline.
"
Hopefully soon
On “Greenwald: Democrats Now Demonize the Same Russia Policies that Obama Long Championed”
Paul the younger is sadly much less principled than Paul the elder. I feel like Ron would've given the C-Span cameraman a lecture on the Treaty of Westphalia, the likes of which he'd never heard.
"
I remember it. I wonder if anyone reconsidered their opinion on the 2004 NATO expansion and the proposal to put missile defenses in south eastern Europe that was getting so much attention at the time. Opinions change, man.
"
Do opinions change, or are most people just largely ignorant and/or intentionally obtuse about long standing geopolitical tensions until they find their way into asinine partisan politics?
"
I think you're right on the characterization of Trump as buffoon and poorly suited to being lead diplomat but the analysis of Russia I think is much more complex. You don't have to think highly of Putin's corrupt and authoritarian government to be critical of how the West has played it's hand after the Cold War. From their perspective we've marched NATO right up to their borders and taken provocative actions in places where they have interests, like Georgia, Syria and Ukraine.
Now I'm not going to pretend Russia's motives are anything other than self interested but I do think we ought to consider the role of American policy in creating and escalating these situations. We wouldn't like it if a power we perceived as threatening took the kind of actions we regularly do in our neighborhood. I mean, look at the response to alleged Russian meddling in our own politics. Why should they feel differently?
"
This is just plain false. The only reason Obama didn't intervene more was because Congress wouldn't authorize it on the terms he wanted in 2013. And even that didn't stop his administration from airstrikes and arming radical militants, a policy I'm certain the Trump administration will continue and possibly escalate .
"
The counter-point to that would be the criticism that arose of Trump's camp (allegedly) being the source of the decision to keep providing lethal aid to Kiev out of the Republican platform. It isnt boots on the ground but it would escalate the conflict, probably in much the same manner Obama's policy of arming extremists in Syria threw more fuel on that fire.
It isnt necessarily a call for war coming from the Democrats but there's definitely a change in stance of some kind in progress. Remember when Mitt Romney was a fool for identifying Russia as America's greatest adversary?
On “King For America”
In Vikram's post about voter turnout he linked to a Salon piece that I think is persuasive on that issue. Specifically it distinguishes 'progressive fashion police' from political liberalism. There are seriously sexist aspects of Republican preferred policies and Trump himself I think is a sexist, but I also think the 'people didn't vote for Hilary due to profound widespread personal sexism across the electorate' theory is weak, or at least extremely incomplete, for exactly the reasons you mention.
"
I demur on the larger issue of whether or not Democrats are sufficiently aggressive but I think part of the problem was that Clinton, due to her own baggage, was unable to get too mean without looking hypocritical herself. Take the sexism/womanizing issue. Of course she shouldn't be blamed for the sins of her husband but could she plausibly hammer Trump on that with Bill's own past, and her defense of him in particular? I'm not so sure, especially, when Trump has the whole cast and crew from the 90s reunited in the wings.
And that's without even getting into some of the more substantive policy issues.
'Trump's foreign policy is not only dangerous, it's foolish and he's putting the future of our country and global system at risk.'
'Says the woman who voted to invade Iraq and gave the guns to the Islamist extremists. THAT'S RIGHT I SAID ISLAMIST!'
On “Why Don’t People Vote?”
Then you get into questions about how such a motivation might impact the outcome, and our system as a whole. What if the election was swung by the 'I just came here for my free brew crowd'?
The road to functioning republic has many pitfalls.
"
I think this captures a lot of it. Combine the lack of clear personal benefit/ineffectiveness of the act for many people with apathy, lack of information, and inconvenience and it's almost a wonder that millions of people still do it. I also agree with your implication that this is not a good thing.
"
What I'd be curious to see is what proportion of the non-voting population live in gerrymandered safe districts and/or states that aren't in play in a presidential election. I live in such a place. I vote out of a stubborn and possibly misplaced sense of civic duty combined with the fact that my vote may matter for local initiatives.
My wife on the other hand tends to sit them out for the simple reason that, other than situations where the democratic party insults it's own constituency by not even pretending to contest the election (see Anthony Brown, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend), most of the time her vote does not matter. On the other hand she was much more active when she lived across the river where the outcome isn't always a given.
On “I Know How College Got Expensive”
The final point I think is the big one. Maybe someone can correct me but I'm not aware of any real limits on government loans to finance tuition. Part of the answer has to involve some type of cost controls that make educational institutions consider costs on students. Right now the federal spigot keeps these entities (and the states that run most of universities) from having to make hard choices.
Thinking out loud but In healthcare we have a relatively new concept of an ACO that theoretically incentivizes keeping costs down. Maybe there's a similar idea for education out there where schools are given a lump sum payment, independently calculated based on major or something similar, and the school then has to educate the student with that money and nothing else. Whatever portion of that sum isn't necessary for the student can be reinvested as the school sees fit.
There are of course loads of details about fraud and keeping standards up (i.e. preventinf these institutions from becoming degree mills in a race to the bottom) but maybe it's a start.
On “Independent: European Parliament committee votes to lift Marine Le Pen’s immunity from prosecution over Isis images”
Pretty much.
"
Stuff like this makes me thankful for the first amendment. Our European friends may do some things better than we do, but man can they get it ridiculously wrong. Every MEP who voted for this is a coward and is doing no favors for liberalism. The ones who lose to FN or AfD and the other right wing populists deserve it.
On “Julian Sanchez — War of the Worst Case Scenarios”
Rest assured they're rooting for themselves too.
On “Commentary: Our Miserable 21st Century”
I think you're right and I think its one of the many reasons Trump is destined to disappoint most of his supporters.
From am even bigger picture perspective I think that kind of inequality is exactly why the more libertarian minded should be more concerned about it. I'm not sure that our form of government can function when inequality is stretched too far. I think it invites all kinds of abuse and petty tyranny. The kind of stuff where libertarian critiques are the most convincing.
"
I'm not saying that the target of the anger is completely rational, or that it isn't also wrapped up in certain rural/small town versus urban cultural resentments and contradictions. White collar urban professionals with some cultural capital are one of the scapegoats, as are illegal aliens and other immigrants (albeit for different reasons). Just because aspects of the criticism aren't valid doesn't mean there's nothing to them. Hell I think us coastal professional types are too easily bought off by the actual elites in this country just because they speak our language, i.e. the super wealthy in big finance, corporate America, and at the top tiers of the federal government.
As for the sensitivity regarding finance, I kind of think thats a personal problem. Where anti-Semitism appears push back. It's wrong and stupid, but I don't think anyone should back off on asking hard questions about why exactly there haven't been any consequences for Wall Street, and I'm certainly not going to read anti-Semitism into those criticisms where there's no evidence of it.
"
I think the additional component driving the anger described in the article is increasing awareness that economic inequality results in different treatment by our various institutions, public and private. This is a serious problem in a country where equality before the law (even if not in means) is culturally enshrined.
Now there are plenty of historically disadvantaged groups in this country for whom this is not news, but in the last 30 years it has come to white middle America. No one can play it off anymore after 2008. So I think there are really 2 issues to contend with, the first being economic insecurity but the second being cognizant of the fact that coastal elites, particularly in government and high finance, aren't subject to the same rules as everyone else.
You can be relatively well off from a historical perspective but still seething with rage when the precarious of your particular situation compared to that of others appears to you to result from inconsistent application of the rules.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.