More explanations from the left for the Democrats’ defeat
In addition to the ubiquitous “failure to communicate to stupid-head America,” there’s the equally ubiquitous “we’ve just been too nice and too passive” exhortation to Democrats to fight more.
Anything to avoid looking at the fact that Americans are just not on the same page, policy-wise, as the “progressives” these days.
And here’s an interesting one: it’s not the agenda, stupid, it’s the unemployment. No recognition that perhaps the two might be connected in some way.
The left blogs display amazing facility to convince themselves of rationalization after rationalization which avoid the main point: the midterms were a rejection of what Dems did when in power. Left blogs began months ago, with “Martha Coakley was the worst candidate ever!”, and have not stopped with the feverish rationalizations.
I do not believe American voters were saying: “Liberalism doesn’t work!” I believe voters were saying: “OUT w/these politicians who passed that @#$% stimulus, who pass laws which they know we do not want, who pass laws in the middle of holiday nights, who do not read the laws they pass, who focus on cap and trade during a recession, who want to raise taxes during a recession.”
Left blogs cannot put two and two together; cannot recognize that the actions which voters rejected were the natural end result of politicians who do not respect the constitution, who do not respect natural law, who do not value our democratic republic form of government, who do not believe our nation is exceptional, who do not value the overwhelming intelligence of free markets, who do not value the wisdom of voters.
Elected Repubs can go astray. What Dems did is what leftist politicians will inevitably and naturally do. The Democratic Party didn’t used to be quite like this. But they are, now.
It is the apparent intent of McConnell and other Republican leadership to return to the good old days of 2006 that I find disconcerting. What makes them think that earmarks and massive deficits are acceptable now?
Surely you know the reason why socialism does not and has never worked in the sense of producing the economic and political welfare it promises? That’s right: because there was not enough of it. Properly imposed socialism would work. Honest. And people would love it.
Oh, they do know the unemployment and voters’ anger are connected. The connecting links is It’s Bush’s fault!”.
They are absolutely sure once unemployment passes (magically, by government fiat), everyone will appreciate their agenda. Because it’s a given that everything good comes from them and the bad – from their opponents. Any unprejudiced person can see it!
take a step back
what your seeing is a search for a lie, phrase, or something that sticks in the publics mind to elucidate its correct behavior.
how else could you turn something like.. say..
the negro project for the extermination of non white races and indigent, and deformed..
into planned parenthood, a social good, and a liberating foundational thing for women rights to murder their own children when they find it inconvenient in terms of their life practices and choices..
if the 50 million exterminated in the US had lived, would we be worrying about the voting going differently towards authoritarian regimes given that the non authoritarians are dead, and the gullible and uneducated are coming over the border? what cant be achieved through debate can be achieved through demographics and genetic dilution through favoring the less capable over the capable and penalizing the more capable.
i wonder at what point will we realize that people that believe in nothing dont kow what to say to peole that have beliefs to persuade them. so they keep banging on phraseology, and other things till they find the winning one…
its like not knowing what combination of pretty sound in cargo cult world will unlock the others to serve you…
so they come up with things and anything that works they copy over and over with diffeent labels and such.
like disparate impact… they used it in germany to get the jews killed acceptably… they used it in america to separate men and women, whites and other races, and espcieally make society target white men for removal… they cant earn money, marraiges fail because of it, they are losing jobs at huge rates, and the list goes on.
why is this so? easy
say kill the jews, and we are all up in arms
say kill all the whites, to get the jews, and we say, ok.
dont believe me?
JOHN STOSSEL: Get Your Affirmative Action Cupcakes Here!
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/11/10/john-stossel-affirmative-action-cupcakes-asians-whites-blacks-latinos-bucknell/
if knowledge is not APPLIED its trivia…
see… you try to treat people outside the missives of the left games… and we clearly see what is unfair…
but, wrap in pc, victimology, social justice, communism, and what was evil at 50 cents, becomes socially acceptable for 20,000 dollars..
[not to mention how the society doesn’t benefit and that costs, and the person who is asian or white also does less so they are also harmed]
In this way, its ok to give lots of money, guaranteed loans, free office equipment, rent abatements, payroll tax deductions, mentorships, discounts on tax rates, extra help in geting contracts…
as long as its ONLY going to women or minorities.
and of course BOTH those groups are all to wiling to kill off the white man by making him pay for those things but not be able to participate!!!!
and then to multiply this out wards by making 20 new offices that do the same thing across companies in the US…
want to know why you dont have the jewish delis that were so popular run by jewish people?
because they are white, and they cant compete against a deli run by a minority who can get all that benifit.
its the SAME thing in germany but slower…
so we dont notice it..
go through the research college i work for… no white males upstairs in the genetics and genomics floors…
why is isreal hated?
because of ot weren’t for Israel, these eugenics and economic games would be eradicating the hated Jews.
the ideology of the prophet marx CANT change, or else it will become somthing different, and so in its unreasonableness, everything else is forced to either fight it, or conform to it.
so, from marxs antisemitism, to Russian antisemitism, to Hitler antisemitism, Fabian antisemitism, secular antisemitism, progressive antisemitism, you would think that people would see the trend and notice that it comes from the prophet himself.
In other words, just as they are doing what THEY Want when they get power after making false promises, this follows too.
means to an end…
and if the means to the end is going to be confounded by moral people and such, we have to find ways to split them and get a base who will accept it as moral with the right situational arguments and relativistic thought trainings…
and so, the process of this despotism is not to call out thugs all the time, but to slice the salami, and to come up with phrases and missives and excuses and other means TO THE SAME END RESULT
its clearly seen that this is a game as the morals and ideas are not consistent the way judeo christian is and was…
that is, its evil to sell cupcakes and charge by race
but its good to sell degrees and schooling and charge by race.
whatever is convenient and gets waht you want is the morals… and we forgive them this rather than bake em when we catch em. care to count the differnt promises the progressives make when with different groups of people?
Aside: hi, Greg! pleasure to see your signature.
Agree with most of your comment, except: “American exceptionalism”. That term always struck me as questionable.
It looks to me America is anything BUT exceptional. Same story, same process, same results of attempted socialist-statist exploitation that were lab-tested in other parts of the world are applied/happening here.
Laws of gravity are the same everywhere. Same – with social/political/economic laws.
by the way, the purpose of habving a saul alinsky is so that you can rewrite the techiques of the past and hand them out and no one will link them back to the sources!!!
if they went directly to the sources, then they could not claim to be apart from the sources and have that sold as ok to a popular front…
so if you are aware of all this, and yuo have read what i keep recomending to read, you realize that saul was a hack who only rewrote ideas and techniques and assembled them from people like Mé¡tyé¡s Ré¡kosi…
its a game…
a nasty evil mind game…
and the prize if you suceed is to only keep what you have…
and if you lose, to lose…
they get to try over and over for eternity
you lose once…thats it…
and if you dont belive that its a game
and it follows the rules of games and things..
then why this?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game
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The term “The Great Game” is usually attributed to Arthur Conolly (1807—1842), an intelligence officer of the British East India Company’s Sixth Bengal Light Cavalry. It was introduced into mainstream consciousness by British novelist Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim (1901).
the Great Game is world domination..
its the game Soros said is fun to play… after all, its the only stakes that are real to him in which he can lose, and be opposed.
The New Great Game
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Great_Game
and like all games there are rules, and there are prizes…
the rules are… there ARE no rules..
and getting the people to align with the idea of no rules, weakens your opponents ability to defend themselves when they see the game
that is, its like the old take i have told before about the dryad and the woodcutter.. she convinces him not to cut her tree by promising to leave a reward at its base. and so he ties a ribbon to the tree, and she promises not to cheat the rules. the next day when the woodcutter comes back to collect, he finds that true to the promise, the tree was left untouched. but on every other tree was a ribbon just like the one that he put on the tree to mark its location.
so if you can align the popular fronts logic towards this, they will not get that they are being played. they will feel a part of the game and that they may win too.
pawns choose to sleep and be moved
higher players learn the game that they are in
i know this to be true, as i have been spending years trying to teach the game to the pawns…
why?
whats the difference between a pawn and other players?
knowledge that they are in a game and whether they want to or not they have to play if others play, and that pretending there is no game, makes you a pawn.
just as making moves without knowing history makes you a pawn not a player…
and if you don’t believe that i have tried over and over. then search neo site for things like Kuhn, Kennan, catechism, sexualization, great game, etc..
its hard to play a game and win or tie if you KNOW the game and the rules.
let me know what your chances are if you dont know the game, dont know the rules, and may not even be aware that your a piece in the game…
The Game of Life, also known simply as LIFE, is a board game originally created in 1860 by Milton Bradley, as The Checkered Game of Life. The game simulates a person’s travels through his or her life, from college to retirement, with jobs, marriage, and possible children along the way. Two to six players can participate in one game; however, variations of the game have been made to accommodate a maximum of eight or ten players. The modern version was originally published 100 years later, in 1960 (then “heartily endorsed” by Art Linkletter, with a circular picture of him on the box) by the Milton Bradley Company (now a subsidiary of Hasbro).
🙂
Here is how soviets play chess to win…
you set up the board
you set the clock
you start the moves
you go through all the motions
then someone from the audience shoots the opponent
the game cant be finished, the soviet wins
since to them there is no god, there is no higher appeal, and no penalty for HOW you win…
those are bourgeoisie customs which they are fine to hold, but why should the other hold that if doing so prevents you from winning?
and also, why submit to the others concept of what win is?
see how it works?
you can win without actually playing the same game your opponent is playing, just move the game up a level or two to encompass more.. (which is why we are not getting whats happening in Washington. you change the rules by just acting on a new set. and if you don’t tell anyone, well, that’s their problem, eh?)
so IF you cant eradicate X which is a part of society
then eradicate the whole society to get rid of X
its just pragmatism…
hi Tat. Maybe we will chat about exceptionalism in person, some time. I understand why using the term is offensive to all persons who do not live in U.S; understand why maybe it is impolite to use the term.
I think of America as being exceptional for 2 reasons: the freedoms of the U.S. Constitution; the gumption of immigrants.
American people are exactly the people of all nations of the world. That is who we are. We are not different or better.
However, the U.S. greatly benefits from the spirit of immigrants such as yourself who had the gumption to overcome big obstacles and get yourselves to America. You guys inject needed energy and gumption into American society. You guys pass that energy and gumption and life philosophy along to your children. And the U.S. benefits from it in a big way.
So, mainly I just think our constitution is such a rare and huge advantage that it makes the U.S. an exceptional nation. But, the U.S. is also helped by that constant and ongoing influx of immigrant gumption. Big plus.
gcotharn:
I think the Progressive blogs are actually correct on this. For all the howling on this site, what passed as the Healthcare reform plan (a joke really, solves nothing, and is of dubious constitutionality) was really full of warmed over Republican ideas from the mid 90’s. And that’s just one example that Obama has governed as Republican lite more so than anything else. The left blogs I hang out in (Talkleft, Firedoglake) actually tended to be right on the money about this election in term of what actually happened. The fact is you folks scare me almost as much as some of the more radical leftwingers do. So tied up in your ideology, so convinced the vast majority of Americans support your mostly corporatist ( I don’t think most of you have a problem with corporate welfare or the impacts of “Free trade” on our country)agenda that you’ll ignore real problems to bash Obama.
What Obama has shown to me is lack of character and lack of guts. He hasn’t really fought for a single “progressive ” thing, since he came in office, nor has he signed much leftwing legislation unless you count the Lily Ledbetter Act. No wonder the 30 to 50 percent of the Democratic party that considers themselves progressive feels that they don’t have a President.
Greg, not “impolite”, not at all – but I couldn’t understand what the term implies. Once you explained, I can say from own experience: this country’s difference vs. the rest of the world is what pulls the immigrants here. Sadly, I see that difference being methodically exterminated by American Left. Few more decades and – if they run unstopped – they will not know what hits them and why their European Ideal does not look as pretty in person as in the ad…
Anti-Semitic themes found in mainstream British circles
Comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany are becoming increasingly common anti-Semitic conspiracies are used more freely in conversation.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=195036
Of course, because you cant have a two class system of aristocracy and genetic diminished slaves if you have smarter people around, eh?
“Depicting the Jewish state as a uniquely racist or imperialist enterprise serves to threaten, isolate and demonize all those who believe that Jews have a right to statehood,” the document reads. “Indeed, anyone who shows support for Israel or Zionism risks being defined and castigated for this behavior, rather than gauged by any of their other actions and beliefs.
maybe those of the faith might realize that in a globalist “open society”, a Jewish nation is a big no no?
Ie, you cant have a one world government with a tiny exception in statehood for one group, can you?
“Today the people in Gaza are the new Warsaw Ghetto, and those who are murdering them are the equivalent of those who murdered the Jews in Warsaw.” Galloway
The report also highlights how a medieval accusation, claiming that Jews steal children in order to use their blood, was also revived and frequently used last year in accusations that Jews and Israelis steal body parts. The London-based but Iranian-run Press TV revived the blood libel charge, according to the CST document.
if it were not for socialism, i believe much antisemitic, racist, and gender stuff would not even exist.
What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.…. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man — and turns them into commodities…. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange…. The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general. Karl Marx – the jewish question 1844
“Marx’s position is essentially an assimilationist one in which there is no room within emancipated humanity for Jews as a separate ethnic or cultural identity.” Larry Ray
“Jews, Marx seems to be saying, can only become free when, as Jews, they no longer exist.” Dennis Fischman
“The second part of Marx’s essay is almost a classic anti-Semitic tract, based upon a fantasied Jewish archetype and a conspiracy to corrupt the world.” Paul Johnson
“That Karl Marx was an inveterate antisemite is today considered a commonplace which is hardly ever questioned.” Shlomo Avineri
“How was Auschwitz possible, what was anti-Semitism? Auschwitz means that six million Jews were murdered and carted on to the rubbish dumps of Europe for being that which was maintained of them–Money-Jews.” Ulrike Meinhof of the Marxist Red Army Faction
A violent man will beget violent ideas.
As noted earlier, Bruno Bauer had taught that a world catastrophe was in the making. From an early age Marx was possessed of the idea that Doomsday was around the corner.
Johnson notes that Marx’s poetry includes expressions of “savagery . . . intense pessimism about the human condition, hatred, a fascination with corruption and violence, suicide pacts and pacts with the devil.”
A poem about Marx, variously attributed to Engels and to Bauer’s brother Edgar, describes him as
“A dark fellow from Trier, a vigorous monster, / . . . / With angry fist clenched, he rants ceaselessly, / As though ten thousand devils held him by the hair.”
In Marx’s personal life, violence was never far from the surface.
He was verbally abusive, and arguments were common within his family. According to an Encyclopedia Britannica account on Marx, his father even expressed fears that Jenny von Westphalen was “destined to become a sacrifice to the demon that possessed his son.”
Jenny commented early about the rancor and irritation she often experienced in dealing with her fiance.
Summarizing Marx’s animosities, the late British historian Sir Arthur Bryant wrote:
‘” David Hume
Brad,
since you were polite, i will be polite..
you’ve been lied to, manipulated and you only think you have a bearing as your views are what they passed you.
what you wrote easily expresses the mish mosh pablum that they spoon feed you guys, and you don’t keep notes, so you always thing they are right, when they are only confusing.
who told you that what was in the healthcare was waht republicans wanted? oh yes, the opponents of republicans. did you go and check to see if you were being lied to, or did the lie resonate with all the other lies that you dont know are lies?
did you determine validity by feel of answers rather than empirical knowledge?
if you say yes, your lying…
So tied up in your ideology, so convinced the vast majority of Americans support your mostly corporatist ( I don’t think most of you have a problem with corporate welfare or the impacts of “Free trade” on our country)agenda that you’ll ignore real problems to bash Obama.
your young… i can tell.
you wouldn’t talk like that if you knew how funny its sounds to people who have heard soviets spout bs that sounds like that…
first of all, you are so screwed up, you think that there is only a choice between two totalitarian ideals.
stalin on the left, htler on the right, and freedom is some position between them, right?
hows this… Hitler was way way left. read the antisemitism post above this one! you will see that the desire to exterminate Jews comes from socialism!!!!!! Hitler was only fulfilling the prophecies of Marx and Engels.
but you never actually read them… did you.
maybe parts, maybe what they selected for you, but never their whole works..
Hitler and Stalin were partners… not opposites.
the exterminations are necessary… not a fluke of crazy people (which is why obamas ‘friends’ talked about killing 25 million americans. the people in power now)
we scare you becasue all you have is myths the people who dont want you to wake up have told you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if i could have one wish for you, i would wish you would read about the Czechoslovakian revolution..
it was top down, bottom up, and inside out to quote van jones..
that is, the top left liberal socialists in state, colluded like they are doign in the US.
they prepared the regular people who you are afraid of, by scape goating them, and then sending out anarchists, communists, socialists, etc… to riot, kill, and go nutsy… (like what the left does at the protests it goes to).
the scale went up, the good regular people you are afraid of, they panic, and they then end up asking the top, because of the bottom to save and bring peace to things.
peace came. sort of..
what happened then was a total lock down of the people and the establishment of a communist state.
have you ever lived under a communist state?
traveled through one? dealt with its government or people?
its silly your afraid of us, and love them…
we never tortured 100 million of our own followers as they did…
@brad
Appreciate your sincerity.
Aren’t YOU ignoring real problems in favor of bashing Obama? 🙂
I’m scared to ask what (lowered tax rates?) you call corporate welfare. However, persons on the right are vastly in favor of letting failing businesses fail, are vastly opposed to sweetheart arrangements in which government bails out failing businesses.
Its not the “30% of real progressives” who cost the Dems at the polls. That 30% will vote for Dems. They have no place else to go.
You say:
“What Obama has shown to me is lack of character and lack of guts.”
Many of us “scary” people on this blog are political junkies who recognized these Obama traits by approx Jan of 2008. We were rewarded for our prescience by being labeled as blasphemers and racists and haters. My own friends, when I expressed concern that Obama was not up to the job, looked at me as if I were an alien: HOW could I, who seemed so reasonable, possibly think such a thing?
You say:
“[Obama] hasn’t really fought for a single “progressive ” thing, since he came in office….”
He has fought, and has succeeded some (Stimulus, Obamacare). What you really lament is that he has not fought with shrewdness, with excellence, with gravel in his gut. Thats b/c he is not shrewd, he is a mediocrity (at best), and he doesn’t have gravel in his gut. He has a pool of water in which to stare at his reflection. He has his precious leftist take on history. And … thats kinda it. He’s got nothing else. The media will soon enough abandon him, and he will not even have them.
@brad
as evidence of my bona fides, I caucused for Hillary on March 5, 2008. It was one of the best votes I ever cast. http://theendzone.blogspot.com/2008/03/i-caucus-for-hillary.html
Brad is still stuck in the same quagmire that grips Obama and the remnants of the Democratic Party: the idea that their stupid, impractical, dangerous, tyrannical, and unworkable policy concepts aren’t the problem — they just didn’t “sell” them to the American people.
Brad: we heard. We heard Obama, we heard his amen chorus in the press, we heard the Democrats’ message over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER again during the past two years. We just don’t agree with it.
I know this is a hard concept to wrap your mind around, so I’m going to repeat it: not everyone agrees with you.
Now here’s another hard concept, but it’s very important for you to grasp this one. It’s this: people can disagree with you without being evil.
In other words, we don’t like the Democrats’ policies. That doesn’t mean we hate poor people, black people, immigrants, gays, Hispanics, women, children, baby seals, old people, transgendered people, Muslims, Jews, American Indians, Inuits, Xhosas, or Aleuts. It just means we think the Democrats’ policies won’t work.
If you think those policies will work, fine, let’s argue about nuts and bolts. But if you are going to come in here and sling insults, then you’d be better off putting that energy to use some other way.
What makes (perhaps all to soon made) America exceptional is that it was formed by people who were determined that the government would represent and serve them, not be their masters. For much of our history we attracted people who risked much to come here for the chance to succeed or fail on their own. In other words we drew people of the same mind as those that founded this nation. They were not smarter, or necessarily harder working, or more honorable, or otherwise distinguished from their fellows except for that. They were willing to take a chance and bet on themselves.
Most of these people would have achieved exceptional outcomes at home but for one thing. Their governments gamed the system so that they were unable to demonstrate and gain from exceptional performance. For most of us an exceptional result requires exceptional effort. Few will make that effort when the system hands the result of your exceptional performance to someone else.
Average everyday people are capable of exceptional performance by dint of effort, drive, and a willingness to risk failure, and, should they fail, to try again until they succeed. To the extent that we encourage and empower individuals (by keeping the system out of their way and letting them reap the reward of their effort) we create and foster exceptional results.
The more we become like the socialist systems of Europe, the less exceptional a people we will be.
Brad said: ” I don’t think most of you have a problem with corporate welfare….”
au contraire mon ami. I was/am repulsed by the GM Chrysler bailouts. Like the airlines, they should have filed Chpt 11 and taken their lumps. The more likely reason for the bailouts were really UAW welfare as opposed to corporate welfare. You don’t seem to understand that most of us here support capitalism… which for the most part means that if a business can’t compete then they fail.
I will bet &100 that brad has no idea that it was his progressives that sided with jim crow… that created the negro project to exterminate blacks (later called planned parenthood). that before wilson, the military and other places were not segregated… they created and sided with “white man”union, and tons of other things…
that for all the claims of socialism and communism as being for the minorities…
the democrats didnt elect a black man to congress until 1935
you would think that the republicans did worse.. and communists who the left admires and such, would have done better.
well the first black elected to office in a communist state was THIS YEAR… (and the people like him)
how about those evil republicans as you say?
well, lincoln was a radical republican and freed the slaves, while the other side sided with the southern slave holders (who compared to the rest of the country were a very small number)
later during hayed tildon, the democrats/progressives went into the south and lynched republicans!!! did you know that?
that the lynching of blacks was to get them to vote democrat or republican…
sanger loved blacks so much she was willing to use black priests in progressives pay to exterminate other blacks!
“The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” — Margaret Sanger, letter to Clarence Gamble, Dec. 10,1939. – Sanger manuscripts, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College. (Dec. 10 is the correct date of the letter. There is a different date circulated, e.g. Oct. 19, 1939; but Dec. 10 is the correct date of Ms Sanger’s letter to Mr. Gamble.)
hitler loved the progressives program for eugenics, his people wrote to her people.
but when did the republicans put blacks in congress, and what where their names?
John Willis Menard (1838-1893); Republican — Louisiana;
Term: 1868
Joseph Rainey (1832-1887); Republican — South Carolina;
Term:1870-1879
Jefferson F. Long (1836-1901); Republican — Georgia;
Term: 1870-1871
Robert C. De Large (1842-1874); Republican — South Carolina;
Term: 1871-1873
Robert B. Elliott (1842-1884); Republican — South Carolina;
Term: 1871-1874
Benjamin S. Turner (1825-1894); Republican — Alabama;
Term: 1871-1873
Josiah T. Walls (1842-1905); Republican — Florida;
Terms: 1871-1873, 1873-1875, 1875-1876
Richard H. Cain (1825-1887); Republican — South Carolina;
Terms: 1873-1875, 1877-1879
John R. Lynch (1847-1939); Republican — Mississippi;
Terms: 1873-1877, 1882-1883
James T. Rapier (1837-1883); Republican — Alabama;
Term: 1873-1875
Alonzo J. Ransier (1834-1882); Republican — South Carolina;
Term: 1873-1875
Jeremiah Haralson (1846-1916); Republican — Alabama;
Term: 1875-1877
John Adams Hyman (1840-1891); Republican — North Carolina;
Term: 1875-1877
Charles E. Nash (1844-1913); Republican — Louisiana;
Term: 1875-1877
Robert Smalls (1839-1915); Republican — South Carolina;
Terms: 1875-1879, 1882-1883, 1884-1887
James E. O’Hara (1844-1905); Republican — North Carolina;
Term: 1883-1887
Henry P. Cheatham (1857-1935); Republican — North Carolina;
Term: 1889-1893
John Mercer Langston (1829-1897); Republican — Virginia;
Term: 1890-1891
Thomas E. Miller (1849-1938); Republican — South Carolina;
Term: 1890-1891
(He was adopted by slaves)
George W. Murray (1853-1926); Republican — South Carolina;
Terms: 1893-1895, 1896-1897
George Henry White (1852-1918); Republican — North Carolina;
Term: 1897-1901
It wasn’t until 1935 that the dems elected a man of race to congress
Arthur Wergs Mitchell
Democrat Representative — Illinois
Term: 1935—1943
actually there is one white guy on the list..
but that’s ok, he was adopted by ex slaves
still think your on the side that was all about stopping racism?
Jean Gregoire Sagbo is the first black to be elected to an office in Russia..
so how is it that blacks side with either russia or dem/progressives as their helpers?
BOTH of those groups have set a goal of extermination. or do you think that welfare and made up culture has done the american of african descent well?
i remember when they had dads, and families, and owned business… i watched left liberal progressive ideas destroy them, and drive the women to the abortion centers, which the progressives prepaid, and put 4x as many in their neighborhoods.
like they learned, if you go after one group, you get in trouble by all the good people (the people your afraid of), but if you pretend to go after all, and use social engineering to impose conditions, you can bypass that cupcake problem.
if you want to read about dems in the south, look up landry parish, the knights of the white camelia, and the testimony given to congress as to how they would throw barbecues in white neighborhoods and invited blacks and all had a good time.. but in black areas, they hunted them down IF THEY VOTED REPUBLCAN… one testimony is of a black woman that lost her husband, her baby, and they sliced her breasts off while alive…
here is a Massachusetts liberal telling a postal worker in no uncertain racist terms…
Postal Worker Secretly Films Customer’s Racist Rant
gawker.com/5688054/postal-worker-secretly-films-customers-racist-rant?skyline=true&s=i
John R. Lynch
John Roy Lynch (September 10, 1847 – November 2, 1939) was the first African-American Speaker of the House in Mississippi. He was also one of the first African-Americans elected to the U.S House of Representatives during Reconstruction, the period in United States history after the Civil War.
here is part of his famous civil rights speech. does it reflect?
is that how the socialists have african americans talking today, or are they now black versions of nazi racists? get whitey, is something that Lynch would never have wanted.
and LAngston Huges should be ashamed
John Mercer Langston (December 14, 1829 — November 15, 1897) was an American abolitionist, attorney, educator, and political activist. He was the first dean of the law school at Howard University and helped create the department. He was the first president of now Virginia State University. In 1888 he was the first African American elected to the U.S. Congress from Virginia and the only one for nearly a century. His early career was based in Ohio, where he began his lifelong work for African-American freedom, education, equal rights and suffrage. In 1855 he was one of the first African-American people in the United States elected to public office when elected as a town clerk in Ohio.
He was the younger brother of fellow abolitionist Charles Henry Langston and the great-uncle of renowned poet Langston Hughes.
myths only seem real when you don’t know what real is.
“A man of race?”
Mario Andretti? Stirling Moss? A.J. Foyt?
Democrats have been anti business but say they are pro jobs. Which is like being anti tree trunks but pro limbs and branches….Like being anti exercise but pro fitness….Like anti boating but pro water skiing.
“what passed as the Healthcare reform plan (a joke really, solves nothing, and is of dubious constitutionality) was really full of warmed over Republican ideas from the mid 90’s. ”
I’ve been a conservative for much longer than that and active in Republican politics since the early 90’s – I have *never* seen the Republicans have health care ideas like that. The closest I saw to this was the closed door health care “reform” committees that Clinton had his wife chair and, last I checked, they were Democrats.
Republicans have consistently been in favor of removing protectionist markets in the insurance companies and tort reform as the main thrust of reducing costs – none of which was even remotely considered.
“The left blogs I hang out in (Talkleft, Firedoglake) actually tended to be right on the money about this election in term of what actually happened. ”
That is correct, but even a person who followed *no* politics knew what was going to happen – it is *why* it happened that is important. That they saw it coming doesn’t lend much to their analysis anymore than pretty much everyone here was exactly on the money too. Just because I was correct that the ball dropped from the top of a tower will go down towards the ground doesn’t mean my theory that trolls are pulling correct.
“So tied up in your ideology, so convinced the vast majority of Americans support your mostly corporatist ( I don’t think most of you have a problem with corporate welfare or the impacts of “Free trade” on our country)agenda that you’ll ignore real problems to bash Obama.”
Um, yea – keep running with giving govt handouts to corps is a reall bad thing and we shouldn’t vote for those that do – I’m sure it will win the ext election really big!
One of the more interesting things to see what will happen long term is that the idea expressed in the parts I quoted were “common knowledge” such that it was near impossible to combat. One of the things Obama has done is mainly leave only the true believers saying it. I know we have used the phrase “the emperor has no clothes”, but how hollow this must sound to so many after the last two years.
There was a time where it really only took a democrat to say that and they had an automatic extra 5-10 points that they wouldn’t otherwise have, now not so much and many are losing without that crutch. Republicans can certainly scre it up, but at this point most have noticed that the Democrats are *not* what they have always had the rep of being and it is causing either rationalizing (but republicans did it to), demoralizing (they screwed me), or burying their heads in the sand (nothings changes – the dems are WONDERFUL and are out for ME!!!!!!).
Brad – I don’t know if you intend on coming back, but I want to second art and give you a salutation for the courtly way in which you stated your case. That’s why I chose to frequent this blog.
I read Hamsher’s blog infrequently, but I was a regular reader during the Obamacare debates, mostly because William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection tried to ally with her in a right-left coalition against the legislation. She did have legitimate criticisms of the legislation, even though I thought her overall perspective on it was wrong.
I focus on this because I have noticed that on the left this line is extremely popular: “Obamacare is just warmed over old Republican ideas.” One of my Obamaphile friends repeats this every time we discuss Obamacare. Hamsher herself repeated it a lot, and I have to confess, I’ve never gotten much clarity on what it’s supposed to mean.
I don’t think it’s a reference to Romneycare, which was (lets be honest) a mostly leftist piece of legislation that was acquiesced to by a Republican governor of a deeply blue state. He tried to “make it better,” but to call the bill a bunch of “Republican ideas” is a bit of a stretch. But like I said, I don’t think that’s what progressives mean.
What I’ve gathered is that they are referring to a Republican alternative proposed to Hillarycare in 1993-94. I have no idea what was in that alternative, so maybe someone else here can fill it in for us.
The point I want to make, however, is that even if a lot of Obamacare was to be found in the Republican proposal of 1993-94, that doesn’t make the latter a conservative bill – just as, like others here have pointed out, TARP and the auto bailouts and the Bush Stimulus were not conservative ideas either, although they were implemented by a Republican President.
Nixon is a favorite for lefties to use when playing this game. It goes like this: “The program X, implemented by a Republican President [Nixon], has always been recognized by both parties as being salutary, but now Republicans are extremists…” etc.
Affirmative action is one fill-in for X. The EPA is another. You get the picture.
None of those were conservative ideas, although they may have prudential concessions akin to Romneycare. Sometimes you swallow a bitter pill that you can take some role in crafting as opposed to getting a lethal pill that is crafted by your opponents. Politics puts even the most principled in such untenable positions. The greater part of the art of politics is discerning when and how to bend, and when and how to stand firm.
But in the realm of ideas there is far less reason to compromise, which is one of the comforts of being an ideologue (and I add that they have their role to play too, lest I be taken as scorning them – heck, I’m probably an ideologue, at least by some reasonable definitions of the term). Still, being an ideologue is no excuse to be irresponsible. And as a possible ideologue, I would say that the ideas progressives point to in Obamacare as being “Republican” may indeed have been proposed at one point by members of the party, but they are in no sense conservative ideas.
After all, isn’t that the distinction progressives like Hamsher are insisting on? Obamacare may be a Democratic party initiative, but, according to her and those who agree with her, it is by and large not inspired by progressive IDEAS.
If progressives can have that distinction, then surely conservatives can have it too.
So what we’re really debating is whether the ideas in the legislation are “progressive” or “conservative,” not legislative history or who proposed what and when.
I won’t go into that now. I just wanted to make a terminological clarification.
Thank you gcotharn for your respectful reply.
And I’ll say I’m glad to see that some of the replies expressed disdain for corporate welfare, though I don’t entirely mean merely bailing out Chrysler and GM. I also am taking aim at the bankers and their unaccountable TARP, and esp. the multinationals and their ability to shelter assets and income over seas all the while outsourcing american jobs to countries where it costs a mere fraction of what it does to live here. These are the people in my opinion who really run both parties.
In any case I see a lot of assumptions being made here. For one, I’ve switched my votes back and forth between Repubs and Dems over the past 18 years having to hold my nose at the “choices” we’ve been presented with. I don’t fit in well with any political or economic ideology: I’m not a strict Keynesian anymore than I’m an Austrian, I’m not registered with either of the two major parties, and I don’t consider myself libertarian any more than I consider myself socialist. I don’t believe any single economic or political system is fully congruent with my understanding of human nature and thus they are ALL doomed to fail in the end. I don’t like the Progressives, but I know what ideas of Progressivism I hate the most, and I can tell you all that Obama never has pushed for any Progressive legislation.
To anyone claiming otherwise, I would ask why the single payer or public option was taken off the table before the debate even began even though the evil presumably radical Obama had control of both the House and the Senate (and arguably could have over-ridden a Republican fillibuster) and could have probably rammed it through.
gcotharn:
I want to address your reply to me seperately because I addressed you and no one else and you were kind enough to extend a respectful reply.
I disagree a bit about the Progressives having no where to go. There’s good evidence from exit polls and the data of who voted that I’ve seen that many traditional Progressive voters sat this one out because they literally had no choice but to reward people who screwed them over without even so much as the pretense of a fight. Remember Obama is the guy who has convened the so-called “Catfood Commission” and has staffed it with people who come from think tanks that no one with a straight face could deny are right wing. Yeah, the Progressives exaggerate with that “Catfood” term, but I’d say no more than many self-proclaimed conservatives with their demonization of Obama as some sort of Progressive Boogeyman.
In my opinion he’s an empty suit whose loyalties go to the highest bidder and who has few principles that he is willing to fight for. Watching you call a tepid “stimulus” Progressive when it in no way resembles the New Deals WPA and was less than what most mainstream economists were calling for, and calling a health plan that doesn’t cover everyone, forces people to buy insurance from the corrupt simi-monopolies we call “private” health insurers (who seem to own half the state legislatures) Progressive really takes the cake. OF course they aren’t going to do tort-reform. The lawyers organizations contribute too much money to piss off, and more than anything else it is money we are governed by and the interplay between various moneyed interest determines what gets passed in our government.
I do feel sorry for the Progressives though. Let me explain why. Progressives – back in the old days of the 40’s and 50’s and 60’s – used to be downright marxists or communists. They were opposed to liberals, many of whom were almost like Neo today in that they favored a strong defense, though they were more “liberal” in their opinions on the worth of government social programs. In short the liberals were Democratic patriots with a slight leftist and somewhat populist bent. Some of those Progressives are still around. But more often when you go to the “Progressive” websites what you find instead are good old fashioned liberals. Patriotic enough in their own ways, and perhaps more willing than most to think FDR was the greatest thing since sliced bread, but still NOT Marxists and not America haters.
These people believe in government for the little guy and that government can be a force for good. You guys disagree totally, I think. But the point is: Obama is NOT their guy! They feel backstabbed repeatedly by him and that they have been snookered into voting a mild republican into office, and now you guys have to put the dagger in THEM by calling this President of ours Progressive or “liberal”. It is to laugh.
I mean you still seem stuck in the two party paradigm. I’m not. I think the Tea Party is the beginning of the end because both parties have become too corrupted by both money and power to represent much of anything anymore.
Brad – glad you came back.
To answer your question, the public option was taken off the table because the Democrats didn’t have enough votes for it. Obama certainly wanted it, though, as did the other progressives in the Democratic caucus.
This is part of the point I was making about the difference between politics and ideology. Usually an ideologue – qua – politician has to take what he can get. There was no way a Ben Nelson or a Joe Lieberman could stand for a public option; furthermore, there was still a hope a getting Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to go along with some watered-down version via the exchanges. The appearance of bipartisanship and the need to shut down a filibuster was, yes, the driving motivation for dropping it.
That had, however, nothing to do with whether or not Obama would have liked to have it, nor with whether other progressives such as Pelosi and Bernie Sanders would have liked it.
It serves the left’s rhetorical purposes to obfuscate this easily observable point by saying, “Come on, Obama didn’t even go for the leftist dream of the public option! He’s a moderate!”
Imagine, though, how a leftist would respond if I said, “Come on, Bush didn’t even push his tax cuts to become permanent!” or “Come on, he didn’t even go for the flat tax, and instead de facto accepted the progressive income tax! He was totally a moderate centrist!”
You and I know that that kind of rhetoric is just that: rhetoric. Bush may or may not have been squishy centrist, but what I just said is not an argument that can demonstrate that.
Nor, by the same token, can Obama’s prudent dropping of the public option demonstrate that he did not desire it, nor can it demonstrate that the bill was AS progressive a bill as was possible to get.
Remember: politics is the art of the possible.
It is ideologues or, if you prefer, theorists, who deal with the impossible.
kolnai:
Thank you. I actually want to say that I agree with most of what you say.
Sort of like I agree we haven’t been following the Constitution for a good 70 plus years now.
But while you say you are a pragmatist when it comes to passing legislation, I’m a pragmatist when it comes to solving problems. Ultimately the Repubs and Tea partiers are going to have to come to terms with the limits of their ideology and its various blind spots. The good thing I see about the current world financial crisis and the internal divisions about things like illegal immigration in the Republican party is that it will fracture just like the Democrats are starting to fracture. From the destruction of both our corrupt political parties, maybe a more representative american political system can be born. Or maybe we’ll split up into various countries. Personally I hope for the first option, but sometimes I think we are doomed to either a Dictator or the second option.
kolnai:
I followed the health care bill VERY closely for over a year at Talk Left. The fact is, we don’t know if he could have gotten the votes, because he never pushed for them, stumped for them, twisted any arms or did much of anything really to get the “Blue Dogs” in line. I don’t see how you can believe Obama was ever for “single payer” or ” the public option”, unless you believed some of his campaign rhetoric and even then he used “weasal words” and sometimes technical terms that could mean one thing or could mean another.
I mean, I’d really like you to make your case, but a case that Obama wanted any Progressive health care bill would seem to be extremely hard to make unless you do what people tend to do on right blogs like this and call forcing people to buy healthcare from private firms and a few new rules dealing with pre-existing exclusions of children “socialist”!
kolnai:
To add a few more things:
A. I don’t agree that Obama didn’t have the votes to override a Republican filibuster. I think he could have got it done if he had properly enforced party discipline.I think forcing the Republicans to filibuster something like that would be a very wise thing to do , because even if they succeeded, I think they would have lost in the end when the voters got a hold of them.
So we disagree on this.
B. Whatever we think of this legislation, if the Repubs and Tea Partiers manage to repeal or even just kill it by defuiding, we better get something done on the healthcare front, and its going to have to be quite radical in either a libertarian free market way or a socialized medicine way because the current system is collapsing with inflation of double digits every year. Saying “no” is easy, offering real solutions is hard, and whatever is done is going to make the insurance companies howl and cry – which is probably why it doesn’t get done, come to think of it.
“I also am taking aim at the bankers and their unaccountable TARP, and esp. the multinationals and their ability to shelter assets and income over seas all the while outsourcing american jobs to countries where it costs a mere fraction of what it does to live here. ”
I’ll say again – you do not frequent many conservative outlets do you. *None* of those things (especially TARP) were popular at all. Support of those things is what directly lead to the total Republican apathy in 2008 with McCain and the R’s in general. They didn’t even have their base let alone independents.
Further that is precisely what the tea party is pushing and, as we can see, their support of the dems is *really* thin and if their continued support of the new republicans is quite iffy at that point – TARP and the overseas shift is a large part of it.
If you had been here for any length of time you would find that most dislike those things as much or more than those on the places you mention – indeed I again have a hard time finding conservative sites that were *for* it. I can see a whole bunch of leftist sites that blame it on Republicans and ignore who voted for them, but that is another story.
“I followed the health care bill VERY closely for over a year at Talk Left.”
And that is part of the issue here – you followed from a highly biased source and, even if you know it was such you very much seem to be treating it like it wasn’t. That was no more a great source than if you followed it closely on The National Review.
Obama didn’t have the support of *average* democrats in congress in that one – you have to have the enforcers to try and twist arms. A mob boss without a mob isn’t going to be much of a boss.
Single player was off the books, most knew it to be total political suicide from the get go. In fact most figured it would end about as well as Tennessee’s state income tax fight a few years back (the state assembly was shot at, some farmers flung manure at the buildings, massive near violent protests) so it was never anything more than an attempt to placate those wanted it so they can say “We tried”.
I guess one can make the case that all of it was just politics, I can’t prove what was in anyone’s mind at all. However Obama has written quite a bit (or a
t least had it ghost written) and gave many speeches. If you really think he is *not* that way then so be it. I have a distant relative that killed a woman, he stripped her naked, tied her, and shot her in the back of the head because she caught him stealing about 200 dollars from where he worked (this was in the mid 70’s). A goodly chunk of my family is *still* certain that he didn’t really mean it and is a good person, it was just he was caught off guard. People can convince themselves of a great deal of things, especially if they primarily only listen to one side (reading and listening/understanding aren’t the same thing either).
At some point it becomes rationalization – Obama got the most “progressive” bill he could get through congress and then just barely. It is a multi-thousand page document and contains well more than “forcing people to buy healthcare from private firms and a few new rules dealing with pre-existing exclusions of children” – I’m going to have to assume you know this. That is a characterture of what the right thinks that the leftists push (otherwise known as a strawman – easier to fight that than what we actually believe), not what we do. It isn’t even true on the far right places – as such you aren’t going to be convincing many here.
Brad – thanks for the response.
1) You said it right – we’ll just have to agree wot disagree on this. But even if you disagree with me on this, at least you can see now why conservatives don’t find the progressive line on the legislation as being a sellout to Republicans persuasive. You evidently find it a weak argument, but we usually find arguments we disagree with weak, so my feelings aren’t hurt (too much 😉
2) Agreed. Although, being a conservative, I tend to think the status quo is better than socialized medicine. I actually am for a safety net for health care, but my ideas run more along the lines articulated by Peter Dranove and Regina Herzlinger.
Cheers on the last line of your post, too. Just remember that when conservatives recommend free markets for insurance, we do not see that at all as “protecting insurance companies.” We would absolutely love to see inefficient, corrupt companies that serve political more than consumer interests go down in flames. The minimal mandate system that forces me to buy state-approved insurance for acupuncture and post-natal care is precisely why I don’t buy insurance, and why, if I did, some corporatist entity would necessarily get my business.
Give me my choice of insurer and my choice of plan and I’m in. And the companies that resist the competition bite the dust. And good riddance.
“if the Repubs and Tea Partiers manage to repeal or even just kill it by defuiding, we better get something done on the healthcare front, and its going to have to be quite radical in either a libertarian free market way or a socialized medicine way because the current system is collapsing with inflation of double digits every year. ”
I’ll both agree and disagree – it doesn’t necessarily have to be radical nor does simply doing *something* any good. We took a LARGE step backwards, we made everything *worse* because we followed that logic.
I can assure you that the only thing worse than doing nothing is doing something that makes it even worse than doing nothing.
No, I do not have the answer but that doesn’t mean I can’t see something destined to fail worse than what we are doing now. It isn’t bold visionary leadership to do that either – it is stupidity to make things worse just so you are “doing something”.
strcpy – you made a lot of the points better than I did. I think a lot of progressives have really convinced themselves that single payer could have passed if only Obama had messaged better and fought for it.
To that, there really is nothing to say.
However, I do wonder what a lot of these progressives would answer if they undertook the very useful exercise recommended by Raymond Aron, which he used to explain what he called the principle of political responsibility. It goes like this:
“Put yourself in the prince’s shoes, and surround yourself with the degrees of freedom present at the time. What would you do?”
I guess it doesn’t always work, because people like our dissident poster Brad can convince themselves that the degrees of freedom were much more flexible and open-ended than they were.
And your last point about “doing something” is right. I simply said the status quo was better than socialized medicine, but the way you put it is better.
strcpy:
The reason I followed the bill at Talkleft was to see what the Progressives were thinking about it from the very earliest stages. It makes sense to go to progressive site if you want to understand Progressive viewpoints. And guess what? Talkleft pretty much knew what was in the final bill nearly 4 months before it passed. In short, they knew the “fix” was in quite early and were very prescient about it all.
You can claim that Obama didn’t have the votes all you want: he didn’t even try, and that has been of a character of his whole Presidency. We don’t know because he didn’t try, so people are free to say pretty much anything. What we do know that is that Mr. “Hope and Change” can’t lead a constipated dog to a fire hydrant.
I’ve read the occasional article on here before: probably I read this blog 3 times a week. I don’t tend to follow the comments though, so that’s why perhaps I don’t know the nuances of the various posters here. I know art makes long sometimes brilliant, sometimes just rambling posts, but he’s pretty much the only commenter I remember because I tend to just read what Neo says and move on.
As for your claims about what Republicans in general support, I fully admit it’s been over a year since I last listened to Glenn Beck, and the only conservative places I tend to go on a weekly basis are the National Review, Townhall.com, and The Wall Street Journal’s opinion section. I don’t think much of Townhall, but it’s occasionally interesting. I also tend to hit Reason.com (libertarian) a lot, and several other more “mainstream” websites like CNN.com and sciencedaily.com. The only leftwing blogs I tend to follow are Talkleft (and like with Reason I HATE their illegal immigration ass kissing) and sometimes Firedoglake. The other places I hang out tend to be places like VDARE, very politically incorrect. Like I say, I usually look at this blog 3 to 5 times a week, and that’s it for my political oeuvore. Perhaps it has skewed my perception but I thought most Republicans while NOT liking TARP ( I did get it was unpopular esp with those on places like Lew Rockwell) were perfectly fine with outsourcing and our free trade agreements, and I certainly expected that to be the case here.
Brad – I’m fine with outsourcing, so don’t be too disappointed.
And I’m fine with free trade agreements, even though bilateral ones are less than perfect.
Like Obama the progressive, this conservative takes what he can get.
strcpy:
Since the current health care system of private employer based provision is collapsing , yes SOMETHING has to be done. This is a case where you need an operation. You may disagree about what operation, and any operation you try might be risky, but something does have to be done now or the patient will die. I hope you can forgive the very appropriate metaphor. Saying that the cure is worse than the disease doesn’t really work when the patient is dying.
Hey guys? Can we all link hands *not in a gay way* and agree we all hate DailyKos and Democratic Underground together?
I don’t go to them because I’ve been to them in the past and the one sided blind ideology makes me physically ill.
Brad – LOL. Can we link hands in a metrosexual way at least?
Well, I’m off to eat some spaghetti.
Thanks for allowing me to have my say in a civilized manner. I wish you all well, and might check back in at a later date.
Brad, with all due respect — and that is quite a bit, given your high-minded responses to debate and eschewal of vituperation to those who disagree — I think “progressive” still refers to downright Marxists or Communists, although through the magic of marketing “progressives” have managed to appeal to a cohort of unwitting fellow travelers who don’t appreciate the true agenda of “progressives.” Downright Marxists and/or Communists instead have morphed into calling themselves “progressive” to sugarcoat an otherwise unpalatable reality. (Examples: the late Howard Zinn has recently been outed as a card-carrying member of the CPUSA; I personally know Angela Davis, and have no doubt that she would call herself “Republican” if she thought it would advance communism.”) So I would respectfully request that you re-examine the progressives from this perspective, specifically how exactly do they differ from downright Marxists and/or Communists? (In policies and actions, not in verbiage.) I believe you’ll find that the answer is “in no substantial measure.”
Preach it, brother. We all share this view. Check out OpenSecrets.org to see where the financial industries’ campaign contributions actually go (not to where progressive propaganda says they go) to gain some insight into this issue. Goldman Sachs is a particularly illuminating case in point.
Gotta disagree here, and go with Ricardo and comparative advantage. Look at it this way: outsourcing equilibrates economic well-being between more and less wealthy countries. In that context, it’s a form of foreign aid, but rather than merely giving aid to Third World countries, we’re aiding them by integrating them into the world economy. Union rubbish notwithstanding, Americans don’t have a right to work at what they want for wages they want; they have to compete for the work. How many fat slobs are there in the NBA? How many fat slobs are there who would like to be in the NBA?
My perspective: life sucks. It’s unfair, it involves lots of hard work and unpleasantness, all too frequently entails bad breaks, and of course for all of us ends badly. Some people do extremely well, through no virtue of their own, while others get hosed, again through no fault of their own. But it is what it is, and no system, no policy, no program, can ever change that, much as we all might wish so. But, paradoxically, efforts to mitigate the caprices of fate — e.g., socialism – in practice exacerbate the injustices by augmenting intrinsic ones with systemically-induced ones.
After re-reading the debate on this thread, I had an idea to see if progressives really mean what they say when they claim this bill is a total sellout.
First, pick any politician (s) who one would consider “progressive”, and determine if they voted for Obamacare or not. (I grant that some progressives didn’t).
But that doesn’t settle it.
Second, would the progressives identified vote to repeal the bill? (And would the progressive answering this question vote to repeal it?).
If no, then they evidently think the bill is good enough on progressive grounds to grudgingly accept and build upon.
If yes, then that’s a pretty good indication that the progs who claim to despise the legislation really do despise it.
My problem with the whole “I am progressive and I hate the bill because x,y,z” line is that very few people I see advancing this position would support repeal. If it does all of the evil things they claim – corporatist alliance with insurance companies, even more than before (e.g., the mandate), etc. – then how can they turn around and say the status quo ante isn’t preferable? Brad said that “saying the cure is worse than the disease doesn’t really work when the patient is dying;” but surely saying that the proposed cure is a kind of euthanasia is not a recommendation. The progressives I hear railing against the legislation seem to say it is the worst of all worlds – so what’s the problem with repealing it? The patient will go back to merely dying, instead of being killed quicker.
My take is just that the progressives are upset the bill didn’t go farther, faster, toward single-payer. But, nonetheless, they know it made steps in that direction, which is, at bottom, why they would not support repeal.
There’s a certain vagueness about their position.
Why do they hate the bill if they think it makes things better, and thus should be kept and used as a stepping-stone?
And they are progressives, so what about it do they think is good enough to make repealing it a mistake? I.e., progressives want single-payer, so I find it hard to believe that they would accept a bill if it moved us farther AWAY from that goal.
It looks to me like simple logic to infer that they believe, although they do not say, that it does move us closer to single-payer.
They’re just scared that their moment has passed, and we’ll never actually get there now that the whirlwind has been sown. It was, in their view, “now or never.” That the bill didn’t give them all they want now, makes them feel like they will get it never. But they’re not willing to give up hope, so they’ll keep what they’ve got, which as far as single-payer is concerned, means Obamacare as opposed to the status quo ante.
QED?
OB, did you see my response that your bet is with me, not Baklava?
We should talk about TARP sometime: whether it was justified, where it has been paid back, where it hasn’t.
You know, i’m not too terribly civilized . During the Korean War, those POWs who were coerced or the few who did qwillingly, to inform on their friends, accept the blandishments of the Res slavemasters were called “Progressives” Those who resisted , under hideous tortures and even unto Death were Reactionaries. Progressive is just another word for Communist bastard. I am very pleased to have been branded a reactionary;it puts me in the company of Giants.
Oblio, no, I hadn’t seen your response. Sorry. I’m still good for the bet.
I don’t know what I think of TARP, frankly. While I viscerally and constitutionally oppose bailing out fatcats who made bad bets (as opposed to skinny cats like me who made good bets that didn’t come to pass!), on the other hand I am not insensible to the argument that money is a raw material to the financial industry, and that without the requisite liquidity the industry – and ultimately the economy – would seize up.
As a scientist, rather than a financier, I just don’t know whether that argument is valid or just a convenient excuse for bankers to shove their noses into the trough.
Holder strikes again, this time re gene patents :
Or like taxol extracted from the Pacific yew tree, eh, Eric?
At some level of abstraction everything — and nothing — is a product of nature. The question is whether at the relevant level of abstraction the applicants for a patent have added value. If so, they deserve patent protection for the value they’ve added. Does identification of a gene associated with breast cancer add value? Uh….yeah. Because now clinical labs know what to look for, as opposed to wondering if that snot-like cell moosh has anything to tell them.
Seriously, can Holder not think at all?
It’s a rhetorical question, obviously. Apparently the Department of Justice’s loss is also O’Hare’s loss of a born Skycap.
“Hey guys? Can we all link hands *not in a gay way* and agree we all hate DailyKos and Democratic Underground together?”
Not really. I do not care if it is in a gay way nor do I particularly hate them. They are wrong to a large fault, but I do not hate them. Nor do I see much difference between them and the sites you list as “good”, it is the same message and ideas just using nicer words.
“Check out OpenSecrets.org to see where the financial industries’ campaign contributions actually go (not to where progressive propaganda says they go) to gain some insight into this issue. ”
One of the best sites on the internet with respect to politics. I have a number of highly liberal aquantices that will not talk politics to me because of that site. After a long rant about whomsoever takes that money should never be voted on, me pointing them to that site, they dropped the whole “politics” thing. They did so much that they will cut their own friends off when I walk near them (and I never engaged politics unless they choose to do so, they are work aquantices and being a software engineer their politics are irrelevant).
The most memorable was one in a long time forum several years back who went into a big long rage about PACS (this was McCain-Feingold time) and the Republican Fat Cats salivating at their chops over that money. After noting that the Dems favored that MUCH more they then moved onto 2000-10000 dollar donations: again the dems highly favored that. Lastly a *really* long rant about the truly rich with 1 million + donations and all sorts of links about who the Republicans got thier money from and how Evil – Truly Evil, not like that other stuff being discussed – this was. That year the Democrats had over 95% of the million+ donations and 9 out of the top 10 and 2 out of the top 20 donations. That thread ended there too.
When it comes to campaign money the Democrats have been the worst for decades. Most Democrats do not know this at all and will rant and rave – if you let them long enough then show that then they sputter out.
Indeed, of the vast majority of things people complain about in politics the Democrats are – by far – the worst of the two. Sadly that is like saying do you want both hands or your arms and legs cut off – I don’t want either. However if I truly have to make a choice then I’ll choose both hands. Most Democrats get so focused on that the Republicans are cutting hands off they fail to notice what their side is doing. This election was *all* about that and it has worked out pretty much the same as it has in the past. Opposition to cutting the hands off is easy and eventually people figure you will do better, when they find out the truth it doesn’t go so well.
Occam’s Beard:
Ricardo and Free trade hmm?
I think Paul Craig Roberts deals with that quite ably here.
http://mises.org/daily/1420
And there’s a nice article on Wikipedia..I know, I know. But this one is well sourced and I think shows some of the MANY assumptions that must go on if one is to conclude that :
1. Ricardian Comparative Advantage is still at work today
2. The United States is benefiting from it
Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
I’m with Roberts on this. I’ve long thought that comparative advantage no longer applies if it ever really did. But then, I know that all economic theories are merely sub theories of whatever human psychology goes into trading. That’s quite obvious because even mainstream economists admit that people sometimes do not act rationally. But the larger point is that because no one fully understands human psychology, no economics theory extant is likely to be correct in 100 percent of all cases.
kolnai:
I’d vote to repeal the current health care law in a heart beat. I don’t think it goes far enough to solve anything, and I don’t like the government telling people what they must buy, esp. when the product they must buy is something that is controlled by some of the governments best friends in private industry.
But then I’d push either an extremely libertarian style solution to the current issue or I’d go full out and push for “gasp” actual socialized medicine. I’d never go “single payer” but I’d gladly go “public option”. And whichever way I went would be determined by whichever thing I was most likely to get passed.
Of course maybe I shouldn’t have answered your question as I’m not one of the Progressives on FDL or TalkLeft. Oh well 🙂
As for your argument about the Progs on TalkLeft and FDL : I think a significant proportion possibly a majority from what I’ve seen would indeed repeal the current law as it is too regressive for their tastes, plus you can see in many of the comment threads that it does not and will not help them, particularly those that are self-employed. Big Tent Democrat, one of the two Bloggers at Talk Left specifically says that this bill does NOT create a constituency for health care reform or for the public option, or single payer or anything like that. He has been repeating over and over that if they weren’t going to go single payer or public option, they should have expanded medicaid eligibility, thus instantly giving them millions of more voters with a stake in the new system.
Now I’m going to point out what you and me both know: the Federal governments deficit issue is real and unless we are willing to do major cuts (somewhere in the range of I think around 500 billion to 600 billion a year) eventually the feds are going to default on it with Lord only knows what consequences not only for this country but the global trade system as a whole. Thus, the only way the Feds can get more money besides cuts is to tax, and thus soon both Progressives and Tea Partiers are going to find themselves between a rock and a hard place, and major new federal progams are highly unlikely to be funded for a very long time if ever.
Hey Brad – well, I will defer to you on what progressives would do; if you’re right, I stand corrected. There will, I suppose, be a test of our little mini-dispute (if that’s the right word) – when Republicans make an effort to repeal, please (and I mean this) let us know what the progressives are saying on the blogs you frequent. (I know I should do it myself, but frankly I don’t have the time.)
I will take issue however with the commenter you mentioned at TalkLeft – the bill expands Medicaid eligibility dramatically. It specifically raised eligibility to – I may be a few percentage points off here – around 133% of the poverty level. It also extends it to childless adults. One study, I think from Heritage, estimated that enrollment in Medicaid would expand by 37% or thereabouts after ten years.
To be honest, I think progressives should be pleased with the bill. We’ll see, anyway, what happens, so unless it is repealed we’ll have a real-time test of our competing views on this. My view is that the progressives are right that the bill doubles down on a bad system; but they are wrong that it won’t create a natural drift to single-payer. The experiences of other states with guaranteed issue and community rating, and above all the experience of Massachusetts, points in that direction.
The incentives of the bill are for employers to dump employees onto the exchanges, and for individuals to do pretty much what they’re doing now, except with a fee for not participating. The new onslaught of insurance mandates in the exchanges will both raise premiums, encourage adverse selection, and thus necessitate either greater subsidies or price controls (rationing). The private insurance market will get much smaller as many companies go out of business.
Bear in mind this is just my reading of where the bill takes us – we’ll see soon enough if I’m right.
There are a lot of variables in between now and then. Republicans could respond to crises in the private market by significantly gutting certain provisions in the bill, which would change my prognosis. The unpopularity of price controls could increase demand for repeal rather than making single-payer seem more palatable. I am far from claiming to be omniscient here.
And of course your last point is a good one – if the fiscal crisis comes (say, through threatened defaults of California and/or New York) before Obamacare kicks in in full, the whole issue could become moot, as Obamacare would very probably be the first thing to have funding withdrawn.
One more point you made is that the left thinks this bill does not create a constituency for single payer, and even though it does expand Medicaid, I still might agree with that. My fear is not that single payer will ever become a majority demand, or that there will ever be a majority constituency for it, but that the step will be taken as a bitter pill to swallow in order to control costs. On that view, this bill is rather like a nudge – it re-arranges the chips such that when the crisis comes, it will seem easier to deal with it by just going whole-hog governmental control rather than going, as you put it, laissez faire. Obviously, I favor (more or less) the latter, and am opposed to the former with every fiber of my being, such as it is.
But we already know we are in polite disagreement about that – you’ve stated you would accept a public option (not necessarily single payer, but lets say its cousin) OR laissez faire. I would not accept a public option or single payer, and would go to my grave arguing for “repeal and replace.” Point is, I don’t want to argue about that. I acknowledge your perspective as legitimate, and admit I could be wrong.
All I’m suggesting is that we tabulate our differing views, and then honestly account for strikes for and against them when they happen. If I’m wrong, by all means come back here when it’s clear that I’m wrong, remind me, and I will eat crow.
Though something tells me you’re too much of a good sport to rub it in.
Occam’s,
Like you. I don’t know about TARP, and unlike you, I haven’t followed it very closely. I do know that on this side of the Atlantic, there was a real panic about a freeze on the world banking system. Some German banks were heavily invested in packaged American financial products whose value could not be assessed, and there was probably enormous foreign pressure for the Americans to do something. I am not competent to evaluate what was done, but I know that you can’t leave foreign input out of the equation. If a foreign bank or industry goes bankrupt, it can affect who wins the next election in that country, and that too has implications for America. It is enough to want to make me seek a plot of land to raise goats and potatoes and ignore the internet.
*expat,
this is a second time I meet the idea of “plot of land” here; maybe I should examine it, too.
I used to have a garden…
Maybe we should form a cooperative!
My instincts say without TARP we would have seen a worldwide depression. With TARP (and all other govt “help”) we’ll see the same thing with a three year delay and much more prolonged suffering. This is shaping up to be a lost decade just like the 1930’s were. And for the same reasons.
would the progressives identified vote
kolnai ,
you are making a bit of a mistake that many or most people make with collectivist vs individuals. Collectivists do not have a personal choice in what they want, only the party choice. they ORCHESTRATE, as illustrated by their idea that they MAKE history while the rest are just reactionary masses.
Your mode of analysis imagines that they are just one more group of people who have made a choice on issues and so by analysis, we can work backwards.
nope
the easiest, though extreme example is the kerfuffle over Molotov Ribbentrop and the CPUSA. If one could get real whiplash from ideas and changing positions so fast, you could have known the communists by how they would all be wearing neck guards.
i keep saying this but the implication i think isnt singing in, so the premises from it do not flower.
no personal beliefs, they collude and coordinate to construct an image of reality for others that gets the horses to turn left or right when they want, and plays to the horses beliefs, desires, etc… while in behavior either doing what they want anyway, or convincing people by some argument that what they want to do is socially acceptable. they often use the “one right idea/perspective” concept.
some of them will even plan to vote alternative ways to add a bit of randomness, and confusion. it all depends on how deeply in line they are, how distant from that center they are, whether they are part of it or being used as a useful idiot, some other layer of belief and denial.
SteveH:
That’s right. A depression was inevitable, given how we have been borrowing from the future in order to live beyond our means today. I was opposed to TARP from the beginning. We should have bitten the bullet and let the insolvent banks and overleveraged consumers go bankrupt. If we had done that, the bad debt would have been flushed out of the economy. There would have been a short sharp depression, but we would be well on the way to recovery by now. The longer we put off the reckoning the worse it will be when it hits. Trying to postpone it indefinitely will lead to economic malaise as far as the eye can see.
In a free-market system, the prudent are rewarded (profits, prosperity) and the irresponsible punished (bankruptcy, foreclosure). That concept has been turned on its head. Bad business decisions, irresponsible borrowing, and even outright fraud by the politically connected are rewarded with taxpayer bailouts. People who work are punished with taxes while others are paid not to work.
Brad:
This has been a good discussion. I haven’t read every comment, so I apologize if someone has mentioned this before. I strongly recommend Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism. It will give you a new perspective on the whole liberal/progressive/socialist/fascist nexus. It’s a real eye-opener.
Many years ago a i caught a fellow employee trying to justify some dangerous actions by evading the truth. I asked him “when does rationalizing end and lying begin”.
rickl:
As a critic of much of what passes for Progressivism I’m fully aware it has some fascistic elements. Alas, I see some of the same crap on the right as well, so unfortunately I’m not impressed with that kind of argument. Arguing over which of the two corrupt primary parties is more fascistic or authoritarian is rather pointless in my view. It’s like the libertarians say in their own simplified critique: The Repubs want more control over your personal life, esp. the sex part, and the Democrats want more control over your wallet. Of course its not so simple (in part because both sides want control over how you conduct your private life), but that’s a legitimate criticism none the less. Whichever vulture gains office , they still want to eat your carcus. Goldberg is a partisan and so naturally he’ll focus on the log in the Democrats eyes rather than the log in the Republicans.
kolnai:
The medicaid espansion doesn’t take place till 2014. I guess I should have made that clear in my comment so you wouldn’t think I was unaware of it, but it really is the case that I don’t think it will happen. Big Tent Dem when this thing first passed was saying it would almost certainly be defunded by Repubs well before then. Of course TalkLeft and even FireDogLake aren’t totally representative of all the Progressives, let alone regular Democratic Obama ass kissers like those on DailyKos, so take what BTD says as an indication of what a majority of Progressives believes at the most, and not as indicative of what all progressives believe. Some are racial demagogues after all, and are convinced that if whitey wasn’t so mean and the voters so racist Obama would have solved world peace by now as well as delivered a rainbow over every household.
Now I mostly agree with the rest of your post, and I will hereby state that like you, I am not God, and can be wrong about what happens in the end. My one final quibble will be about the exchanges. My opinion of the exchanges based on what I’ve read is that they will not be adequately set up or funded to make any real difference in terms of price depressions for health care services. In other words, I am claiming that the one part of this bill that supposedly will result in some competition and a reign in of medical prices will NOT work, and it is this as well as my knowledge that the bill does not do much to expand coverage that leads me to believe this law will not solve the problems that it claims to, and thus needs to be repealed or replaced or near totally revamped.
My solution to the health care problem (if we actually have one, and I’m not so sure about that) would be to reduce the enrollment in law schools by 50%, double the resources to allow a doubling of medical students, and let the Feds open free medical clinics for anyone who otherwise can’t afford medical care. Leave the present system alone – just offer an alternative that’s free.
Not very sophisticated, I know.
I think that the reason the Progs didn’t push for a single payer bill is because of the probable resistence, and the fact that the present bill is so bad that they figure – probably correctly – that people will be _begging_ for a single payer system after 4-6 years of the present program.
They’re not quite as patient as the muslims in working towards their goals, but they’re close.
Brad Says:
November 13th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
But, see, that’s not the “right”. It’s more Progressivism, which has infested the Republican party as well as the Democrats (just not quite as badly). George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” was an expression of Republican Progressivism. His favorite President was Theodore Roosevelt, who was the first Progressive President.
The Tea Party is partly a revolt against Republican Progressives, aka RINOs.
Rick, why don'[t oyu have a blog? I’ll put oyu on my blogroll as yet another alter ego
First, let me confess to my prejudices. As a physical scientist, I view economics as pretty much in the same league as santeria, but with a less solid intellectual underpinning. The Long Term Capital Management fiasco (two Nobel Laureates in economics, no less) provided proof positive of the intellectual bankruptcy of the subject, in my opinion. No Nobel Laureates in the sciences have ever been had their work refuted, much less in so dramatic a fashion.
For this reason I view economic concepts as interesting points for discussion, but hardly Holy Writ, since as you point out, economics is essentially applied psychology (differential equations notwithstanding). Consequently, I’d modify your statement above to read ” no economics theory extant is likely to be substantively correct in any case.”
All that having been said, to those who criticize outsourcing, I’d ask what they’d consider the alternative, and how they’d prevent businesses (as close to rational actors as we’ll find in the economy, I suspect) from pursuing outsourcing, without resorting to naked protectionism, capital controls, or other governmental intervention in the economy (all of which are amply discredited policies).
In essence, American workers have to compete with foreign workers on either price or quality. If they can’t — or won’t – do so, outsourcing is inevitable. No one has a right to do what he wants and get paid what he wants. American workers might lose, but foreign workers would win, as would American consumers.
Occam’s Beard:
Perhaps its a philosophical difference between us, but I take the sovereignity of Nation states seriously even though I know they are merely one type of human governing institution. Well, trade between nations to me is like that. if it doesn’t make sense for your nation, you don’t do it, quite simple really. I personally think the multinationals have too much power and are used to playing the work forces of the various nation-states against each other and in many case (like ours) they almost literally own the policy making branches of the government. I think – and this is the only downright Marxist idea that I like- that we need an international labor treaty setting minimum wages (adjusted to the various countries COL of course) and other minimum health and labor standards. Only this can prevent a “race to the bottom” or outright war between countries, which is what the current system in my mind seems destined to eventually cause. In short, I believe in protectionism in some cases, and industrial policy in others even though I am fully aware that of not only the dangers but the limitations of central planning.
I’m sure you disagree, but really, based on the fact we both agree that economics is not a science, this is just one opinion against another. I suspect we would agree, for instance, that a good economic system rewards productivity and individual iniative and makes some room for movement between classes and even that it’s good sometimes for people to have a chance to become rich. I suspect we disagree in that I think even a near total libertarian government has to intervene at times to determine the various trading rules and incentives and disincentives that arise within even a pure free market system. And I don’t think international trade (unlike some local markets) is ever anywhere NEAR a pure free market.
But there’s an even larger issue looming on the horizon: automation. Early last year, or the year before there was an article on Sciencedaily.com about a computer system using artificial intelligence that given data by a human and while being connected to several automated scientific machines conducted an experiment. It conceptualized a hypothesis based on its AI algorithms, it devised an experiment, it conducted the experiment using the devices it was attached to, and it ended up discovering something new in some field of biology. I’ll look up the link for you if you want.
At this point, I have to ask a question: when, not if, they find that computers can replace scientists and are more “cost effective” , what will be left for people to do besides a few entertainment and personal services jobs? How can you run an economy without understanding two things:
A. The economic system is meant to serve the nation and the people with in it, not the other way around
B. People will not starve for abstract economic principles. You want political instability? Continue the current race to the bottom till so many people are affected by it (not just an industry dominated by white males like tech was. Everyone hates white males (well, I’m one myself, but you know its no fun being the official oppressor and enemy), so no one cares if a few “overpaid” tech guys get theirs) that the populace at large can’t ignore it any longer.
And remember where all this worshipping of “efficiency” and “profit” at the expense of any other consideration gets you: robots. They never sleep, never eat, will probably quickly become very reliable needing little maintainence (and eventually they will be able to do that themselves), and don’t worry the owners of capital with moral quandries.
Occam’s Beard Says:
November 13th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
OK, you win the thread.
Brad, it is probably not fair to guess, based of a few comments you offered in the recent threads; please forgive the effort: I’m just curious.
You are probably not in profession with high level of job insecurity, do you? I infer it from your sudden discovery of dangers of automation. Tech white males brought their demise on themselves when invented computers!
Welcome to Luddite club, Brad.
The answer to your dilemma, as know to anybody who emigrated and/or had to change profession and start from scratch: adapt. Adaptation is the modus operandi of evolution.
Tatyana:
That’s not really an argument that you presented there. I could tell you that I’m a transhumanist and generally a technological optimist though I believe “peak oil” is real and is indeed the actual reason for some of the things the US and China , among the other powers are doing.
The fact is, before anything else I’m a humanist. Anything done on a societal level should be done with the benefit of the humans of that society in mind.
My “sudden discovery” of automation? I’ve been reading stories of robots in science fiction and stories like “The Midas Plague”, since I was a boy in the 70’s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midas_World
What is NEW is that I was always told that while automation threatens low skill positions anything analytical and/or that required a high degree of creativity or education would have to be done by humans. Wrong.
And thus in the end there turns out to be little or nothing for humans to do. If you are so silly as to to think this is “inevitable” and “can’t be stopped” when the world economy itself teeters on the verge of collapse I can only say I feel sorry for you. There’s nothing wrong with a new social compact being formed between the capital holders and the people through their elected representatives. What skews that right now is that the capital holders have undue influence. My warning to anarcho-capitalists and such is that they better learn the limits of their ideology fast or they will find that people prefer a Dictator rather than their “paradise”.
Oh, Brad, I’m so moved by your feeling sorry for me.
Not curious anymore.
Well, Tatyana it is not a good form to assume anything about a person you do not personally know. I’m glad I could answer your question. I am looking forward to Occam’s take on my ideas about automation, however.
Well, Brad, I have preceded my assumption with a fair deal of apologies. You, on the other hand, not only didn’t read my comment with attention, you answered with 90% of strawman self-aggrindizing to its content, while avoiding direct and open answer to my question. You find questions about your profession threatening? That andyour self-characterization as “humanist”as well as siting sci-fi literature of the 70s as legitimate source
tells me all I needed to know.
Your patronizing tone (with no apologies whatsoever) was just an icing on the cake.
As to “your” ideas about automation, Brad: again, you just woke up? Best minds have been discussing it in every possible context thinking up scenarios since the beginning of Industrial Revolution. Including “your” fear of intelligent computers replicating, programming and fixing automated processes w/o human participation.
You are like a child scaring himself at the doorway of a dark room and getting angry at an adult who dismisses you delicious fears.
Once more: think about implications of the word “adapt”.
Tatyana:
If you would read your first comment to me, you threw out the word “luddite”. I take that as a personal insult. I certainly didn’t see any apology from you in your reply to me, and insofar as anyone was being “snotty” I think it was you. I’ve managed to have good conversations with pretty much everyone else on this thread, but for you. YOU who started out with an insult and a whole bunch of assumptions.
I find it very funny you trying to lecture me on automation, as if I wasn’t fully aware of every single thing you’ve said about it in your replies to me. My point, which seems to have passed over your head, was that we were constantly told by those who pushed “New Economy” paradigm that while the “brawn” jobs were going overseas Americans could be re-trained to take the “brain” jobs and as far as A.I, that was a field that had stagnated for years (I know this because I followed it) due to one or two dominant paradigms that turned out to be more of hindrances than help to implementing it. In short, this sort of stuff means there won’t BE any “brain” jobs , at least any in large enough numbers to make a difference.
And thus the whole justification for the “new economy” (even if one rules out the fact it wasn’t likely to work anyway due to IQ and other HBD issues) falls apart.
Now I don’t know whether its my opinions that bother you or something else that has caused you to get personal about things, but I do wish you’d stop. Give me some credit at least rather than assuming things about my background and knowledge. And why what I have done in the past for a living or do now for a living is any of your business I do not know.
You managed to get good conversations because
a) people here are patient b) you hold your tongue and didn’t employ patronizing “I’m sorry for you, you silly thing” tone before.
As I said, I am no longer curious about your views: they are too banal to argue with seriously. Others might be interested in “converting” you; I’m not.
So long.
“Converting ” me?
Dearie, (and to match your patronizing tone with one of my own)
I don’t think you have either the education and probably not the brains to do that. You certainly haven’t shown it here. Having started with an insult, you end with an insult. Color me unimpressed.
Brad:
To say that computers and robots will leave people with nothing to do is short-sighted. Technological innovation also creates new opportunities. The greatest minds of the 17th century couldn’t even imagine future trades like plumber, electrician, and auto mechanic. Those jobs pay very well, too. Likewise, we today can’t imagine what new kinds of jobs will be created in the future thanks to automation.
Automation didn’t eliminate farming or coal mining. True, it has reduced the number of people needed to work in those jobs, but it has largely eliminated the ceaseless mind-numbing, life-shortening, brutal physical toil they formerly required. At the same time, automation created entirely new categories of jobs (see the first paragraph).
Brad,
you gotta have the last word, huh? I already waved g’bye to you, but you had to shout into my back?
I pity your wife.
No, Brad, I didn’t start with an insult. Unless you consider direct question about your profession to be one.
Rick, Brad can not imagine himself working as a plumber or an electrician, let alone a farmer or miner.
With all his self-asserted “education” he can’t understand that it is possible to as well as up. He doesn’t know basic, fundamental things about history of technological innovation you [very, very patiently, as if talking to a jumpy 10yo] explained to him in the above comment. Apparently, as I said above, he had never had a need to reinvent himself, his occupation and his prospects in the workplace – and he displays rather adolescent belief that somebody has to provide job security for “creative types”.
I wonder if he will site sci-fi novels as futurological authority in his reply to you…
accidentally omitted above:
adapt down as well as adapt up
rickl:
To say that computers and automation will magically lead to new jobs based on a singular historical example (far as I’m aware its only in the past 2 and a half centureies that there has ever been an industrial revolution) is a matter of FAITH.
You ask people to re-train but you can’t even give them an idea as to what to re-train into.
The matter of FAITH that has been a part and parcel of America’s economic policies over the past two decades -arguably two decades plus with Reagan- is that the economy will gradually change from manufacturing based to services and design work.
But for the most part, the only jobs that have appeared that are not bubble based (such as the tech boom and FIRE occupations) have been service jobs, and not particularly highly paid ones at that.
Another article of faith has been that we are only competing with other humans, not automation per-se. And for the most lucrative mind jobs that has easily been the case, though automation has of course devastated vast areas of the economy. But now, finally in the past few years AI has started to come into its own in these more “knowledge based” professions. Broad based AI algorithms vastly expand the occupations that can be replaced when compared to the simple “expert systems” of the past.
Thus yes, even scientists -people whose education and creativity I thought protected them from being replaced by non-intelligent A.I.- will soon start to be replaceable. If these people – among the very smartest and well-educated of all people on the planent- are ever easily replaceable (and I think they will soon be, I wouldn’t have said the same ten years ago) then what hope does the poor average schmoe have to earn his own bread?
And forgive me for wondering just where the money is going to come from to support a pure service based economy in any case. I just don’t think this works.
In any case, learning to repair robots will be a great thing for a short time in the future. Unfortunately the vast majority of people won’t be able to do this. And unlike you, I see INTELLIGENT A.I, as a paradigm shift, and I don’t think we can count on much of anything. Maybe social instability.
Tatyana:
In your first post did you or DID YOU NOT call me a luddite? I rest my case, dear.
I believe that technology -even GASP automation- can be harnessed for human good. I simply don’t believe in lassiez-fare any more when it comes to either “free trade” or automation. Intelligent automation makes every single job occupied by a human ultimately be at risk except arguably entertainment and CERTAIN “personal services” jobs.
Most of the rest of your posts have been filled with a whole bunch of assumptions: that I’ve never had to retrain for anything, that I’ve never picked up a shovel, and etc. and etc. I would like to think you are better than this, I really would.
Brad Says:
November 14th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
That is wrong in so many ways I don’t even know where to start.
I can’t predict what kinds of jobs will exist in the future any more than Isaac Newton could have predicted the existence of auto mechanics in the 20th century. Could a hunter-gatherer in 10,000 BC have predicted horse-drawn iron plows?
There’s nothing magical about it. There are no limits to human imagination and ingenuity, except those constraints we put on ourselves. The leading constraint is the dead weight of government. The greatest period of American innovation was when the government was much smaller and less intrusive than it is today.
Today the government wants to micromanage every single aspect of our lives, including the kinds of light bulbs and toilets we’re allowed to have. They no longer recognize any limits whatsoever to their power over us. And there are lawyers lurking behind every tree, ready to pounce on any infraction.
This climate is not conducive to human freedom and innovation. The reason that the only jobs we have left are FIRE and service jobs is that Byzantine environmental regulations, insanely complex tax codes, and politically correct racial quotas have driven all of the productive jobs overseas.
rickl:
“There’s nothing magical about it. There are no limits to human imagination and ingenuity …”
Are you sure about this? Because I can tell you there is an IQ distribution among humans, and as far as we know no one has ever tested over 300.
Seems there’s a fundamental limit to me.
Now genetic engineering or turning humans into cyborgs might change that. But then you are tinkering with “human nature’ the human nature that both left and right claim supports their paradigms.
As for the rest of your post, I will say I partly agree with you that some of those things are bad and have had deletorius effects. I’m just not convinced they have done as much damage as you think they have and …more to the point…they don’t answer my automation challenge to you. This can be rephrased as suppose we have robots who can be trained to do what a human worker does at a very high level of skill. Say a robotic order taker/deliverer. Say these robots need very little human oversight. Except for some entertainment and some personal services jobs both sexual and otherwise, what are the vast majority of people going to do? You haven’t answered my question, instead you re-stated your faith.
Now we all have a little bit of faith in this or that. Faith in science. Faith in God, if one is religious. And faith that our own opinions are correct, fair enough. But intelligent AI raises tremendous problems and I don’t think its enough to wave those potential problems away with a show of faith. I think we should at least as a society engage in rational argument first and then go on and decide what role, if any trade and robots will play.
Rickl,
one more obstacle to your list: government-mandated union labor.
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