I read this last year as well. Frum is an interesting guy. He is certainly conservative in many ways to the core. I doubt we would believe in the same policies to solve problems but he certainly understands what is going on the right and that it is not good.
Or as TNC says: Liberals have a media, conservatives have a press office (paraphrase).
Kevin Drum considers this part of the Fox News Effect. NewsCorp and other places have created a perfect sealed chamber that allows them to believe this stuff. Our own Tod Kelly noted how the 24/7 drumbeat of hysteria has created a frenzy for many non-scandals.
And as I have mentioned before, Richard Hofstatder's The Paranoid Style in American Politics is probably the smartest and most insightful essay ever written about the American political system. Everything Hofstatder wrote then can apply to the right today. There has always been a sizeable minority of the American right that is outright nuts. They see themselves as the only defenders of freedom and values. Keep in mind that I have no idea what they mean by freedom but it is certainly not anything that comes to my mind when thinking about the word.
I am all for examining the idea that many (but not all) pieces of policy of legislation can have unintended consequences and/or be a double-edged sword. However, I would probably strongly disagree about when this comes to social issues like gay marriage with "Burkean" conservatives.
However, I don't see many conservatives being Burkean skeptics when it comes to analyzing the unintended consequences of their policy preferences.
Personally I am rather tired and annoyed by how many conservatives claim they are merely maintaining the mantle of "Burkean" skepticism. It often seems to merely be a pretext for keeping enshrined order and privilege in the named of "tradition"
I think Douthat's article and reaction show the impossible split between the religious conservative and secular mind.
It seems to me that there is a large section of religious conservatives in the United States who are largely Calivinist and Orthodox in their thinking. It does not matter if they are Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or anything else. They have all had their worldview tinted by Purtianical Calvinism. To these people any lifestyle that is not ascetic or working towards a concept of the afterlife is one that is decadent. The career people who decide to have one or two children later in life are no different than 20-something club kids who stay up all night and binge on drugs and booze.
On the other hand if a person is secular or at least theologically liberal enough to reject the concept of hell and judgment than there is nothing wrong with having kid's later in life except maybe personal regret but that is an individual and not societal issue.
There is simply no middle-ground between these positions.
1. A moderate type person that their readership can largely agree with. This is David Brooks at the Times. He plays the role of moderate conservative who does not offend liberal sensibilities on equal rights for minorities. He also writes the frequent "I will be the conservative who agrees with liberal talking points but for different reasoning" column.
2. Someone who conforms to the worst stereotypes of the other side and allows the readership to mock, gloat, and feel superior. This is Ross Douthat's role whether he realizes it or not.
3. He tends to write things that spur reaction. The modern media market makes more money from one sensational article or column than a whole traffic. Hence the need to peddle in easy outrage.
When I was a theatre director, I could have filed for a copyright on all my stagings but it would be largely worthless to me because noone cared about me enough to copy/steal my stagings.
There are a handful of theatre directors for whom this does matter than and one famous case involving a theatre in Florida copying the staging of the original NY production of Love, Valor, and Compassion without permission or payment. Our current IP laws seem designed to largely protect the 1 percent of the IP world.
The way I understand it is the issues with current copyright is that there are strange power dynamics at play.
Most copyrights are not really worth the really long protection currently offered in the United States. However, there are some very lucrative copyrights that are worth perpetual or nearly perpetual copyright protection. The candidates for these are unsurprising: Mickey Mouse, Superman, Bugs Bunny, Spiderman, Darth Vader, Donald Trump, Mario, etc. Also unsurprisingly most of these copyrights are held by large entertainment conglomerates that did not exist when the Framers wrote the Patent and Copyright clause.
Disney is not going to let their copyrights go silently into that good night. This is why we have super-long copyright protection.
Where does giving to arts organizations come in terms of charitable giving?
By Arts, I mean largely performance and not-education based organizations like Film Forum, NPR-esque stations (San Francisco's local Jazz station is now non-profit because not enough people listen to Jazz for it to be for-profit), theatres (which are almost exclusively non-profit organizations). Giving to these groups is outward because it allows artists to be employed but also inward because I enjoy jazz on the radio and going to the theatre to see less than mainstream stuff.
I don't think it is necessarily immoral to donate to your alma mater but there is another way to look at it.
Could it be immoral to donate to certain universities? Or to put it another way, Do schools and universities like Philips Exeter, Dalton*, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Vassar, Amherst, MIT, CalTech, etc need anymore money for their endowments? Shouldn't they be required to dip into their enormous endowments to build another dorm. Most of these schools could probably offer free tuition for many years based on the size of their endowments.
I am not a utilitarian. Pete Seeger takes most of his arguments too far because that is a great way to have a career in academia (if I understand his argument correctly, I am morally required to live like an ascetic and use all my discretionary income towards charity. I would just take enough for food, shelter, and basic clothing, recreation goes out the window). Somehow I don't think Seeger lives up to this standard. However, I think a colorable argument can be made for very large donations. If someone is considering making a large donation to an educational institution, perhaps they should find one with a modest endowment because that will help the most.
2. This one is harder to say. Probably strongly but not as strongly as Kennedy wants to solidify his legacy.
Interestingly, I can see this being a 7-2 decision with Scalia and Thomas writing something so horrible that future generations will look at them aghast. Though plenty of us look at them aghast. Thomas seems destined to prove his nastiness every term in new and unique ways. He also seems likely to hold out on the Supreme Court until the bitter end.
I also worked for NOVA. Nova seems a bit different though because their model was to have a constantly revolving stream of early to mid 20-somethings that wanted to live in Japan for a year or two.
I was there from 2002-2003 so most of this stuff happened after my time. Though there was still plenty of grumbling about NOVA during my employment with the company. Watching the bankruptcy crisis from a distance was an interesting experience.
I think it is possibly to be more foodie and European. I remember going to Disneyworld in 4th grade and being grossed out by the fact that they had Mayo for the burgers and fries in the Europe sections.
Now at 32, I still don't like Mayo. Yesterday my brother put Mayo on his burger. Maybe I will talk to him by Wednesday. Maybe.
There is more to life and decision making than Market Justifcations. There is also ethics, morality, fairness and justice. Abstract notions but important ones that makes us human. Ghandi was onto something when he came up with the creed of no economy/commerce without morality. This is much better than the cheerful praise of The Dismal Science.
So even if there is a perfectly market justified reason for Wal-Marts compensation practices, they are still morally and ethically wrong and therefore should stop. It is wrong to give people less than a living wage and causes more of a burden on the state. If Libertarians wanted less state than they would support higher living wages for unskilled workers. Of course you maybe you have a secret fantasy of meeting a Robspierre or Trotsky one day.
I graduated law school in 2011. According to the statistics, only 55 percent of people who graduated law school in my year have jobs that require bar passage. Luckily I am one of these people.
My job is on contract but it pays very well. Surely my firm could probably charge less because of the alleged overglut of recent law school graduates. Some firms have been trying to take advantage of this. Yet my firm luckily does not.
The problem is that there are a lot of jobs which are necessary for society but seem absolutely determined to pay a low wage. This is an issue I think about a lot.
There was another story this week in Bloomberg that was indicative of this trend. It was about an African-American woman who worked as a care taker for the elderly. She has been making 12 dollars an hour since 2005. She also lost her dream house in the Fiscal Crisis. The story contrasted her fate with the guy who ran the Mortgage Department at Bear Sterns. He made something like 8 Million Dollars last year and seemed to suffer no punishment despite being the guy who ran the department that caused Bear Sterns to belly up.
Why does the home care taker only make 12 dollars an hour and has not seen a raise since well before the fiscal crisis began? The United States has a rapidly aging population and we are going to need more people who take care of the elderly. No one can argue with a straight face that her job is unnecessary. Perhaps it is not quite skilled labor but there should still be a wage premium for necessary jobs.
On “How ACORN Stole the 2012 Election”
I read this last year as well. Frum is an interesting guy. He is certainly conservative in many ways to the core. I doubt we would believe in the same policies to solve problems but he certainly understands what is going on the right and that it is not good.
Or as TNC says: Liberals have a media, conservatives have a press office (paraphrase).
"
Kevin Drum considers this part of the Fox News Effect. NewsCorp and other places have created a perfect sealed chamber that allows them to believe this stuff. Our own Tod Kelly noted how the 24/7 drumbeat of hysteria has created a frenzy for many non-scandals.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/12/fox-news-effect-republicans-still-think-acorn-alive-and-stealing-elections
And as I have mentioned before, Richard Hofstatder's The Paranoid Style in American Politics is probably the smartest and most insightful essay ever written about the American political system. Everything Hofstatder wrote then can apply to the right today. There has always been a sizeable minority of the American right that is outright nuts. They see themselves as the only defenders of freedom and values. Keep in mind that I have no idea what they mean by freedom but it is certainly not anything that comes to my mind when thinking about the word.
On “Parting Ways”
"The one who would write with purposeful obtuseness"
Once again making me wonder whether TVD was the right-wing variant of Derrida.
On “Dave Brubeck, 1920-2012”
Kathy's Waltz will always have a special place in my heart. Largely because one of my favorite people is named Kathy.
"
Damn.
I am more of a Blue Rondo a La Turk guy.
On “On Ross Douthat, More Children, and Less Decadence”
Would it be ironic to call them Jacobins?
"
I am all for examining the idea that many (but not all) pieces of policy of legislation can have unintended consequences and/or be a double-edged sword. However, I would probably strongly disagree about when this comes to social issues like gay marriage with "Burkean" conservatives.
However, I don't see many conservatives being Burkean skeptics when it comes to analyzing the unintended consequences of their policy preferences.
"
*two kinds of heretic columnist
"
Personally I am rather tired and annoyed by how many conservatives claim they are merely maintaining the mantle of "Burkean" skepticism. It often seems to merely be a pretext for keeping enshrined order and privilege in the named of "tradition"
It is all so very pompous of them.
"
I think Douthat's article and reaction show the impossible split between the religious conservative and secular mind.
It seems to me that there is a large section of religious conservatives in the United States who are largely Calivinist and Orthodox in their thinking. It does not matter if they are Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or anything else. They have all had their worldview tinted by Purtianical Calvinism. To these people any lifestyle that is not ascetic or working towards a concept of the afterlife is one that is decadent. The career people who decide to have one or two children later in life are no different than 20-something club kids who stay up all night and binge on drugs and booze.
On the other hand if a person is secular or at least theologically liberal enough to reject the concept of hell and judgment than there is nothing wrong with having kid's later in life except maybe personal regret but that is an individual and not societal issue.
There is simply no middle-ground between these positions.
"
Every paper needs to kind of heretic columnist:
1. A moderate type person that their readership can largely agree with. This is David Brooks at the Times. He plays the role of moderate conservative who does not offend liberal sensibilities on equal rights for minorities. He also writes the frequent "I will be the conservative who agrees with liberal talking points but for different reasoning" column.
2. Someone who conforms to the worst stereotypes of the other side and allows the readership to mock, gloat, and feel superior. This is Ross Douthat's role whether he realizes it or not.
3. He tends to write things that spur reaction. The modern media market makes more money from one sensational article or column than a whole traffic. Hence the need to peddle in easy outrage.
On ““You didn’t write that.” (The Copyright joins the Copyleft)”
I would support this.
"
When I was a theatre director, I could have filed for a copyright on all my stagings but it would be largely worthless to me because noone cared about me enough to copy/steal my stagings.
There are a handful of theatre directors for whom this does matter than and one famous case involving a theatre in Florida copying the staging of the original NY production of Love, Valor, and Compassion without permission or payment. Our current IP laws seem designed to largely protect the 1 percent of the IP world.
"
The way I understand it is the issues with current copyright is that there are strange power dynamics at play.
Most copyrights are not really worth the really long protection currently offered in the United States. However, there are some very lucrative copyrights that are worth perpetual or nearly perpetual copyright protection. The candidates for these are unsurprising: Mickey Mouse, Superman, Bugs Bunny, Spiderman, Darth Vader, Donald Trump, Mario, etc. Also unsurprisingly most of these copyrights are held by large entertainment conglomerates that did not exist when the Framers wrote the Patent and Copyright clause.
Disney is not going to let their copyrights go silently into that good night. This is why we have super-long copyright protection.
On “Is It Morally Wrong to Donate to Your Alma Mater?”
Where does giving to arts organizations come in terms of charitable giving?
By Arts, I mean largely performance and not-education based organizations like Film Forum, NPR-esque stations (San Francisco's local Jazz station is now non-profit because not enough people listen to Jazz for it to be for-profit), theatres (which are almost exclusively non-profit organizations). Giving to these groups is outward because it allows artists to be employed but also inward because I enjoy jazz on the radio and going to the theatre to see less than mainstream stuff.
"
I don't think it is necessarily immoral to donate to your alma mater but there is another way to look at it.
Could it be immoral to donate to certain universities? Or to put it another way, Do schools and universities like Philips Exeter, Dalton*, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Vassar, Amherst, MIT, CalTech, etc need anymore money for their endowments? Shouldn't they be required to dip into their enormous endowments to build another dorm. Most of these schools could probably offer free tuition for many years based on the size of their endowments.
I am not a utilitarian. Pete Seeger takes most of his arguments too far because that is a great way to have a career in academia (if I understand his argument correctly, I am morally required to live like an ascetic and use all my discretionary income towards charity. I would just take enough for food, shelter, and basic clothing, recreation goes out the window). Somehow I don't think Seeger lives up to this standard. However, I think a colorable argument can be made for very large donations. If someone is considering making a large donation to an educational institution, perhaps they should find one with a modest endowment because that will help the most.
On “Can There Be Any Doubt?”
1. Probably very badly.
2. This one is harder to say. Probably strongly but not as strongly as Kennedy wants to solidify his legacy.
Interestingly, I can see this being a 7-2 decision with Scalia and Thomas writing something so horrible that future generations will look at them aghast. Though plenty of us look at them aghast. Thomas seems destined to prove his nastiness every term in new and unique ways. He also seems likely to hold out on the Supreme Court until the bitter end.
On “McUnion”
I also worked for NOVA. Nova seems a bit different though because their model was to have a constantly revolving stream of early to mid 20-somethings that wanted to live in Japan for a year or two.
I was there from 2002-2003 so most of this stuff happened after my time. Though there was still plenty of grumbling about NOVA during my employment with the company. Watching the bankruptcy crisis from a distance was an interesting experience.
On “Cries Out For A Caption Contest”
Is that what Biden calls Gangham style?
On “P.S. I Love You”
Berlin was smack-dab in the middle of East Germany
Hmmm...this could be a problem....
On “A Major Seachange In Culture And I Don’t Know When It Happened”
I think it is possibly to be more foodie and European. I remember going to Disneyworld in 4th grade and being grossed out by the fact that they had Mayo for the burgers and fries in the Europe sections.
Now at 32, I still don't like Mayo. Yesterday my brother put Mayo on his burger. Maybe I will talk to him by Wednesday. Maybe.
On “Walmart and the Welfare State”
There is more to life and decision making than Market Justifcations. There is also ethics, morality, fairness and justice. Abstract notions but important ones that makes us human. Ghandi was onto something when he came up with the creed of no economy/commerce without morality. This is much better than the cheerful praise of The Dismal Science.
So even if there is a perfectly market justified reason for Wal-Marts compensation practices, they are still morally and ethically wrong and therefore should stop. It is wrong to give people less than a living wage and causes more of a burden on the state. If Libertarians wanted less state than they would support higher living wages for unskilled workers. Of course you maybe you have a secret fantasy of meeting a Robspierre or Trotsky one day.
"
Or her contrast her to me.
I graduated law school in 2011. According to the statistics, only 55 percent of people who graduated law school in my year have jobs that require bar passage. Luckily I am one of these people.
My job is on contract but it pays very well. Surely my firm could probably charge less because of the alleged overglut of recent law school graduates. Some firms have been trying to take advantage of this. Yet my firm luckily does not.
"
The problem is that there are a lot of jobs which are necessary for society but seem absolutely determined to pay a low wage. This is an issue I think about a lot.
There was another story this week in Bloomberg that was indicative of this trend. It was about an African-American woman who worked as a care taker for the elderly. She has been making 12 dollars an hour since 2005. She also lost her dream house in the Fiscal Crisis. The story contrasted her fate with the guy who ran the Mortgage Department at Bear Sterns. He made something like 8 Million Dollars last year and seemed to suffer no punishment despite being the guy who ran the department that caused Bear Sterns to belly up.
Why does the home care taker only make 12 dollars an hour and has not seen a raise since well before the fiscal crisis began? The United States has a rapidly aging population and we are going to need more people who take care of the elderly. No one can argue with a straight face that her job is unnecessary. Perhaps it is not quite skilled labor but there should still be a wage premium for necessary jobs.
"
Taft-Hartley needs to be chucked out the window.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.