This is a very good post.

Of course this raises the question of how informed should the average citizen be about politics, policy, foreign affairs, what percentage of the population is gay and lesbian, etc. How bad is it to be a low-information voter?

People on the League are largely very well-informed regardless of their political ideology. In general, I would say we are the high-information voters who disagree. However, every now and then we work from the same plague of working from different facts or information. This is the MSNBC v. Fox News problem. Of course, plenty of partisans can be low-information voters as well.

However, I don't think everyone needs to be a News or Politics junkie and I can see why people would find keeping up with news and politics and policy to be exhausting, depressing, and emotionally draining. There is nothing wrong with wanting to spend your downtime with friends and family in a relaxing manner instead of pouring over white papers from Brookings and Cato or watching the news.

What do you (and other League members) think is the happy balance between being a political junkie with strong convictions and being a low-information voter?

Of course, emotional appeals work of both sides and as proudly as I am I dislike inflamed rhetoric. But as you note, both parties know that they need emotional rhetoric to win.

I think it is impossible to prevent someone from holding political beliefs or positions based on their religious views or lack thereof.

People are always going to be pro and con things based on their religious views.

That being said in a nation of 300 plus million people and a multitude of religions, it is probably best to come up with non-religious justifications if you want to convince a majority. There is also the fact that we have a no-Establishment clause in the First Amendment.

I am pretty sure that my ambivalent feelings on tattoos can be traced to my Judaism. I am also sure that my Jewish feelings on tattoos should not inhibit non-Jews from getting them. Nor should my Judaism apply to other Jews. Though I would probably be more likely to argue with other Jews about whether Jews should refrain from being tattooed.

Likewise, my Sabbath is not on Sunday. I should not be compelled into Blue Laws enforced by Protestants and their interpretation of their religion.

The cynic in me says no but who knows. Things are slowly beginning to change.

I think that the Boomers and older generations have to become irrelevant in politics for any change to occur.

Even then it is an open question. Marijuana is basically not taboo anymore but it is still subject to great hypocrisy. There is no real reason to fight for legalization in the Bay Area because it is de facto legal here. I see people lighting up in public all the time without impunity including high school kids playing hokey. In other places, middle class and above white and Asian people can get way with smoking it in the safety of suburban cul-de-sacs. It is the poor and minorities who are arrested and jailed.

Other drugs are still taboo. Hash might get legalized along with marijuana if and when that happens. Maybe MDMA will come next. Cocaine, Crack, Heroin, Meth, and abuse of drugs like Ritalin and OxyCotin are still taboo. Opium and others are too rare. I know people who admitted to cocaine use. I don't know anyone who openly admitted to heroin use though I probably know people who have used the drug. Maybe one person hinted about experimenting with narcotics beyond marijuana, hash, MDMA, LSD, and shrooms.

I don't thin capitalists are always to blame per se.

However, this does not mean that ordinary folks are too blame. It was Wall Street that created the NINJA (no income, no assets, no job) loan and then went looking for takers. The government was also to blame for encouraging homeownership in irresponsible ways.

It is mainly hypocritical moralizing that I object to, not risk and speculation. There are plenty of people from all levels of education and socio-economic background who are still suffering because of the financial crisis. How are the students from the classes of 2008-2011 at fault?

I think Portugal and the Czech Republic have rather good policies towards narcotics.

They are much smaller nations than the U.S. of course but I would like to see their policies emulated here.

I think marijuana and MDMA should be legal. People should be able to grow their own marijuana like you can grow basil.

I am more uncertain about harder drugs. Heroin and Meth are pure poison. Meth can also be a serious health and environmental hazard and make land uninhabitable.

However, addicts and mere possessors should not be sent to prison.

I work. I am an independent contractor and one of my monthly expenses is my own health insurance. I pay my rent and bills on-time.

Healthcare, food, shelter, and clothing are not luxuries, they are basic human rights.

Luxury is nice restaurants. That is something I will pay for myself.

The British have NHS. I have not seen Belgravia or Hampsted Heath reduced to pig pens.

That could very well be true. They could be for people just below C-level status.

Are you saying that m,y post is neither profound or amusing or referring to Ferguson's article?

The issue for me is not central planning vs. non-central planning.

Where I come in is with a question on whether suffering is necessary and natural? If I recall my economic history correctly, 19th century economists believed that the boom and bust cycle was perfectly natural and that the best thing to do during the post years was to do nothing.

This resulted in a lot of wide-spread human suffering and often the people who suffered the most were not the people who caused the bust. Yes there are always some Wall Street types who do lose their fortunes during busts and sometimes whole firms go under and collapse. However, the biggest suffering tends to be among non-investors. Ordinary workers who are just trying to get through life and provide for themselves and their loved ones. These are also the people who recover last.

I find it morally disgusting and ethically wrong for the powers that be who cause crashes to moralize to the non-involved about the importances of austerity and tightening their belts. I am not against capitalism or luxury. I like nice things and would like to live in expensive areas during my life. What I am against is Calvinist moralizing about boot straps and rugged individualism and blamming the laid off when they are not to blame.

We are going through a paradigm shift right now. Automation and technological innovation are allowing corporations and countries to produce a lot more with fewer workers. In many ways, this is good. However, we are not having the necessary discussions about what to do on a planet with 6 or 7 billion people when we do not need all these people for work. We are simply having moralizing and blaming the displaced worker for things beyond his or her control.

This is why safety nets are important. We need them to prevent the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as much as possible. Anything can change at anytime in either direction. A moral and ethical society tries to have mechanisms to prevent the swings from being too wild. Someone should not go from being a worker to absolute despair and homelessness in one day.

The purpose of universal healthcare is also this safety net. Yes people should be allowed to eat what they want and partake in drugs and alcohol. What universal healthcare is for is sudden disease or injury. A car accident caused by drunk driver or bad road conditions. That lower back pain that turns out to be cancer.

Employment protection is inhibiting employer's from firing employees who deserve to be fired but it is to make sure that the reasons are legitimate and not against public policy or morality. No one should be fired or discriminated against because of their race, religion, creed, sexuality, marital status, lawful out of work activity, politics, ethnicity, being called to public service (like jury duty or military service), or because a family member needs aid and care in an emergency. Managers should not be encouraged towards bullying.

I would be willing to accept less economic regulation if it came with an active and robust social safety net. However, in the United States there are many on the right and a decent amount (but not all) libertarians who refuse to accept this. They want no safety net, no regulations, and no taxes. They want a race to the bottom where all are below Corporation. I am opposed to this.

And I also don't think there is anything wrong with a government encouraging healthy lifestyles

People fact-check my dating profile.

People are just not buying my line about being a dead-ringer for Gregory Peck.

James,

Thanks. I think.

Though I do tend to be an acquired and quirky taste. There was another internet community I was on where half the members seemed to love me and the other seemed to hate me and wondered whether I was a troll or sock puppet. And some people who started in the later group but learned to like me. One memorable post from the group was a woman who met me in person and wrote about how she was a bit shocked that I was charming in person and quick with a smile. We are know friends.

For my own personal education, what about my description of myself gives you that initial impression?

Kazzy,

Did NYC finally get a good modern rock station?

I mourned the death of WLIR/WDRE.

Kazzy,

Not owning an iPod might make you more hipster than you realize.

I have both his albums and pronounce it the second way.

James,

Those are good points.

I honestly don't care about the name very much and immediately got the Alan Moore homage. But if someone were to ask me about the connotations that the word evoked in a neutral setting that is where my mind would go. Or I would think of how the women described me above.

Taking old and/or loaded words and stripping them of their class connotations is a noble goal but very hard. Sometimes impossible.

It is sort of related to when minorities reclaim old ethnic or prejudicial slurs. This practice always left me feeling weird at least in terms of Judaism. There is or was a Jewish magazine called "Heeb" and that always rubbed me the wrong way. Then again I never liked the reduction of Judaism to kitsch and I am far from the most religious person in the world. I am almost completely secular and if not atheist, at least a very apathetic agnostic.

I've had it debated whether I count as hipster or not. A lot of my tastes in music, reading , NPR shows, and movies often falls somewhere under the rubic of hipster. So do my preferences for craft brews served in bars with the iron, wood, and edison bulb aesthetic and my coffee snobbery.

However, I don't really dress the part. And can't pull off their version of "irony".

On a somewhat related note to answer your dreadlock question. If I was ever in a position to hire someone for office work, I would not mind if they had dreadlocks. I might mind dyed neon hair though.

That is a bit too formal/Victorian for me. Plus I don't like high collars very much or feeling constrained.

I prefer a more modern look with some bohemia thrown in for my former theater days like:

http://www.billyreid.com/product/wesley-brown.html

http://www.parkandbond.com/product/132611876

Interestingly in some ways my tastes are more modern and also more conservative.

A t-shirt with Tom Selleck? Are you s hipster?

You would be perfectly at home in Williamsburg* with that t-shirt.

*The section of Brooklyn that is known as one of the birth places of the Hipster along with the Mission in San Francisco. Not the city in Virginia. My NYC-SF brain works against most of the US. I usually just presume that when I talk about Williamsburg most people will know I am talking about Hipster-central. Experience teaches me that this is not true.

I guess millage my vary.

My issue with the term gentleman is that does have old-fashioned and class-based implications. When I think of the term gentleman, I think of men of leisure from Victorian and Edwardian England. I think of it as a term used to keep out outsiders from being part of high culture and society. "He might have money but he is not gentleman" meaning he has the money and works in the right field maybe he even attended university but his ancestry is humble and he did not attend Eton or Harrow. Or in the American case, Groton or Exeter.

I get visions of "seasons" "deubtante balls", old-fashioned holidays at New Port beach or the English countryside, etc.

No one in this community is ordinary probably. Ordinary people do not write long blog posts on politics.

I just want to say hello to a fellow Dale.

There are not many of us around.

In an ideal world, a gentleman can probably wear almost anything and still be a gentleman. The only exceptions being if the t-shirt was trying to be offensive or rude on purpose. There is nothing gentlemanly in shock jock humor/12 year old humor.

In reality, I think when people think of "dressing like a gentleman" they think of something more elegant and formal. Not necessarily a suit or tie all the time but something more than a t-shirt and shorts. A look that is unquestionable adult. The link I provided is Southern casual gentleman with a modern twist. Note of disclaimers, Billy Reid is one of my favorite designers.

The basic look found in the fashion pages of GQ or Esquire is also the basic look of s gentleman. You can look like a gentleman and wear jeans but never shorts. In the popular imagination, a gentleman embraces being an adult in all ways.

That is a good question. I think the term is largely anachronistic.

On another web forum that is largely comprised of women, I was unironically and sincerely described as a gentlemen by a few of the women. I think they meant that I was polite, did not act like a "bro/frat dude", they guessed that I observed personal space, etc.

In real life, I think I have a bit of a reputation for being a gentleman but no one has used the term directly. I was once called "Dinner Party fun" in a hopefully good way. There was another time when I was really tired and wanted to go home but was encouraged to go to another guy's apartment with two women. The encourager (who wasn't present at the apartment) told me she was really glad that I went. Later someone else told me that this was not for my own benefit but largely to prevent anything sketchy on the part of the other guy.

I would say being a gentleman is roughly equivalent to not being selfish or a douche and this includes being kind and considerate at the expense of your own sense of style and perhaps sometimes dignity. This might mean putting on a suit or something more than casual gear from time to time.

I think the best take on Niall Fergusson's article involves two factors. One is not related to the Professor and that is that Tina Brown has basically decided that the best way to revive Newsweek is by trolling. This is not completely her fault but the current nature of the beast in web publishing. I remember hearing that on-line journalism is no longer about getting people to read a whole issue but makes money via having one or two articles clicked on a lot and passed around the web. The best way to get clicks seems to be via contrarianism and being agent provocatuers. We say don't feed the trolls but it seems like umbrage provides some kind of narcotic high and people like being outraged and being able to write screeds in the comments about why the author of a post is simply wrong.

While responding to the professor is necessary it also adds fuel to the fire and I bet Tina Brown is not upset one bit about the controversy. Neither is Niall Fergusson probably.

The second part involves understand Niall's real target audience who are not fellow academics (everyone denouncing him does so while lauding his pre-hack work like his history of the Rothschilds), Newsweek readers, or the general public.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/niall-ferguson-newsweek-cover-11914269

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/08/dishonesty-is-the-seventh-killer-app/261352/

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/the-age-of-niallism-ferguson-and-the-post-fact-world/261395/

Ferguson seems to make most of his income from the speaker's circuit. According to what I've read, he resigned from Harvard Business School (but not Harvard itself) so he can do more speeches without having to do pesky things like teach classes. His article was really aimed at surprisingly eggshelled Masters of the Universe* who want to be patted on the head and given a cookie and are willing to pay top dollar to do so.

*I am very fascinated about how eggshelled many executive and Wall Street, and John Galt wannabe types are. They are wildly economically successful and still seem to basically wanted to be given milk and cookies and a kiss on the head from mommy. They have absolutely no concept of why people who are struggling or lost their jobs would be angry at them.