Hey Guys
Hello everyone. It certainly has been a while and I see that, quite understandably, the site has gone downhill. I have no interest in closing up shop unless you guys want me to because I do not mind hosting the site.
However it is quite clear that there is no future here if nothing changes. Would you all be interested in moving on to a different format / different site name / different ruleset - etc? I don't know if you had that discussion or not. There are certain things that are easy to implement (with not much labor on my part) that I would be willing to consider.
Ultimately it is up to you guys if you want to keep going, or change, or whatever else. If you have any cool ideas please discuss them. I open up the floor and will be checking in for the next few weeks, and perhaps participate.
Comments :
we can completely change the mission of the site
if it would make it more interesting or workable. Site and domain name as well. Think about it :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Here's the only thing that might work
Hi there. It's nice of you to have continued hosting all this time and to be willing to do so further.
As you probably recall, a few months ago I tried pretty hard to get folks to recognize the problem with SC in terms of the steep drop in quality of discussion/debate (vs. a year or two ago) as a few high volume problem individuals dominated threads (in terms of quantity and intrusiveness) and the (probably) related drop off in participation by individuals who had offered more substantive, intelligent, good-faith engagement and who presumably sought the same from others. Folks here generally disagreed with my view, and instead only saw a problem of "civility", which, while undesirable, was the symptom more than the root problem, which was that these vastly disproportionately high volume commenters showed no reasonable degree of good-faith in discussion, as well as being fairly thick mentally.
So I pretty much walked away, checking back once in a while to see what portion of the "Latest Comments" were from the same bad-faith idiots, hoping to see a shift, which I haven't seen (at least not much, if at all).
Ya' wanna know what I think is needed at this point if SC wants to get on the path toward recovering it's previous quality and quantity and then growing from there?
1. Suspend for a month or two the individuals who ruined SC and who would turn off anyone worth bringing to SC. These individuals are ML, GR, Centinel (and GR and Centinel may be the same person), and perhaps Corph (not sure if he/she is still participating)
2. On some Saturday, email all the lapsed participants who have apparently been turned off and don't bother with SC anymore, acknowledge that SC's participation has dropped off, explain that you recognize the problem, and that you are undertakign this initiative to get SC back to quality and quantity (first back to the old quantity level and then beyond) and invite them all to come back at the same time for an open thread on the following Wednesday evening, from 9pm - 11pm EST. Encourage them to invite others (former SCers whose email you perhaps don't have but perhaps they do, and new folks) who are seeking intelligent discussion/debate. Ask them "Will you join us this Wednesday evening?" Send a reminder email each day leading to that evening.
3. Post a front page diary on SC about the upcoming "reunion" and "welcome" that will be a "new beginning" for SC. Keep that diary as the top diary on the front page.
4. On that Wednesday evening, propose making it a weekly event, an evening that is more likely to draw subsantial, timely comment volume on a thread than any given time on any given day.
Think how much better than the status quo it would be if we could have participating during the same hour several of the great folks who never/rarely participate on SC anymore, plus the few high-quality regulars who are still here, plus perhaps a couple of new, quality invitees. That experience could serve as a new base for growth. From there, ideas for further growth could be discussed, as you and I did over pizza way, way back and as you and Brendan and others and I discussed on a couple of Contributors threads.
Oh, and as for me, I'll be at
Oh, and as for me, I'll be at my most diplomatic, even if I sense that someone is behaving in the ways that ruined SC. If that occurs, at most I'll address it gently.
some decent ideas
I'm going away for the weekend - back on Tuesday. See if more people give us their thoughts :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Some, maybe.
If we took a vote on "which user would you most like booted from the site", I have a feeling BR wouldn't be far from the top. On multiple occasions I've asked him to point out what was so objectionable in my posts, and he would respond that he essentially couldn't be bothered. I'm the farthest politically from GoRight and Centinel, but BR is the only one I can say I took a real dislike to.
But I'm not in favor of banning anyone, unless some serious Godwin or violence-related stuff showed up. People eventually learn not to respond to silly, excessively inflammatory or irrelevant posts. Insomuch as moderators are necessary, I believe PF and SL are doing fine at it.
Corph, you said something
Corph, you said something early on (in your presence on SC and/or in my experience with you) that self-identified you as an extreme hyperpartisan who was unlikely to be worth engaging. It was something to the effect that you can't see how any reasonable person and/or decent person (I can't remember exactly which it was, or if it was both) could be a Republican (or perhaps it was "a conservative"). Yet I'm pretty sure even that didn't stop me from trying to engage you intelligently and reasonably, to no avail.
Yes, if you put it to a vote, I might be at the top of people to ban, but that's because the people who ruined this site comprise probably half or more of the remaining regulars (who total perhaps a half dozen, if even that, and if you define "regular" as posting at least one comment a day on average, perhaps there are zero)
Although I don't consider you quite as bad as ML, GR and Centinel (the latter two perhaps really being one), you are one of the four "problem individuals" on SC.
I think this is Corph's
I think this is Corph's comment to which I refer above
Didn't like that, did you?
Ironically, it was in response to one of your call-outs of GoRight, I believe. Since I made that comment I've had some constructive exchanges with the redbars, although I haven't changed my perception of the Republican party. I base my views on observations of political events; that doesn't make me extreme or hyperpartisan in itself. I remember one of Ender's posts about quitting the Republican party in disgust. And he has much more conservative views than I. There are aspects of the American Republican party that set it apart both in degree and in kind from that of any other party of an advanced nation, right or left. I have expanded on these aspects several times.
Let me put it this way: the left's equivalent of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh isn't Keith Olbermann or Michael Moore. You'd have to go as far as Rosie O'Donnell or Louis Farrahkkan to match the rhetorical idiocy, and mainstream Democrats won't go near either of the latter two. Alan Greenspan's philosophy has demonstrably failed. Friedman couldn't hold Keynes' briefcase. The religious left is too busy helping poor people to build megachurches and fund homophobic referendum drives. 20th-century Democratic ex-presidents did great philanthropic work. Ex-Republicans since Hoover joined the Carlysle group and made the occasional disaster relief pitch. You don't have to conclude as I have that one party is clearly better than the other, but dismissing that line of thinking as hyperpartisan is a fallacy.
YOU had the flame war with GoRight, not me. YOU're the one constantly trying to belittle other posters' intelligence. Seems like your definition of honest, intelligent debate is simply one that doesn't mention either major party and their relative merits.
YOU had the flame war with
Irrelevant to my point.
Irrelevant to my point.
Absurd.
And you are failing to make obvious distinctions that I'm not going to bother taking the time to explain.
You never do.
I understand, of course, because you have no point.
He never does ...
because when he senses that he is outmatched (which happens with pretty much everyone he interacts with) he just gives the lame "I can't be bothered" schtick. A pathetic cop out if you ask me.
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4So what?
Corph is stating what he believes. Why is that "hyperpartisan"? It isn't.
What exactly do Republicans stand for these days? Secession, unregulated capitalism, and fetal values.
The only thing wrong with this site right now, is that everyone is so vested in this notion of not being offensive for the sake of 'rational debate' that it has killed off all conversation.
When it comes down to the list of what Republicans believe in these days, I agree with Corph. If I was a Republican I wouldn't admit it for fear of embarrassing myself in public. They are worse now than under GWB's leadership.
Trust me most folks won't easily forget what happened when Republicans had control of all three branches of government under the Bush years. Our country is currently dealing with all of the ills Bush and his enablers left behind.
I'm only half stupid
A lot of it is Obama's own fault:
Obama didn't start all of this stuff, but he's sure been allowing it continue pretty much unabated, and the fact that he has no control over it indicates two things:
A) He really doesn't know what he's doing.
B) Obama also appointed people to his cabinet who got us into the mess we're presently dealing with in the first place
C) It's disgusting, not to mention hypocritical of Obama to continue to extend and escalate our war in Afghanistan.
D) The fact that Obama voted for the FISA Bill and for continued funding for our war in Iraq while still a senator, and during his campaign made me decide not to vote for him, despite the fact that I'd been sort of leaning towards voting for him beforehand.
E) Obama's a little too hifalutin' for my tastes.
F) I have no regrets.
Report card
A) Maybe, but who does? Somebody has to be prez.
B) True. May show a lack of self-confidence in that he thinks he needs insiders.
C) Hardly disgusting, I'd say. And he did campaign on focusing on Afganistan, even if the same tired arguments we were having about Iraq are surfacing again.
D) Agree, cowardly at best. Did he actually vote for the bill itself or only for cloture though?
E) Hmmm. Well after an elitist moron pretending to be a regular Joe, an elitist well-spoken guy isn't so bad.
F) If the polls had been seven points closer, you would have.
To each their own, corph.
I would call Bush a moron, but not an elitist.
Your last point isn't relevant, since it didn't happen. No regrets from me.
We've got no more business in Afghanistan than we do in Iraq, or that we had in Viet Nam or anywhere else, for that matter.
Obama actually voted for the FISA Bill itself, from what I understand, as well as funding for our iraq war, even after having gone on record as having opposed them both.
Imho, A society that wishes to become civilized, imho, doesn't go from"electing" a guy who deliberately breaks our system so he can experiment with it and fix things his own way to electing somebody who just plain doesn't know what the hell he's doing.
Well with Afganistan
if you pack up and leave, Al-Qaeda can start setting up camps again. Of course, they can do that in any failed state. I dunno what the best course is, but there is some sort of moral justification for being there, unlike Iraq.
I think Obama may well understand the complexities and magnitude of the problems he faces better than most would. I also think he`s too cautious and wedded to conventional wisdom to improve things significantly. But I had no more faith in any of the 2008 contenders (the 2004 gang was better). Did you?
To be truthful,
I dislike ML far more than I dislike GR and Centinel, despite the latter two posters' politics being different than mine. Just being honest here.
Honesty back at ya
IMHO, the replies to missliberties tend to be more offputting than her original posts. Sure, she'll say something over-the-top and insulting to the Republican Party or a specific public figure, and then someone will reply with personal insults. Many of you may think she's asking for it, but you are the ones taking the bait and devolving the discussion further into personal attacks.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
kisses
;-) xxxx
(That's quadruple x, not triple x, so it is safe for family viewing.)
I'm only half stupid
Provided the family has a long enough attention span
If they stop reading after the third x, they'll be traumatized for life!
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30883
I disagree with you here, Spiritual Lefty.
It's not just simply the Republican Party that she goes over the top in insulting. ML has gotten quite condescending and insulting in her whole manner towards the posters themselves when someone posts something that she doesn't like or agree with.
I disagree with you, Spiritual Lefty.
ML is the one that often gets personally insulting and resorts to personal attacks on people whose viewpoints are different from hers, and then cries foul when people give her back what she's given them. I don't buy what you're saying here at all, Spiritual Lefty.
Same ol' BR, same ol' BS.
BR was whining that I was somehow killing the site and that I should go away and things will be all better. Well, over the past few months I have been sick of politics, spent some time at Wikipedia, but more recently have just been trying to ignore the internet altogether. Here's my contributions here at SC:
http://www.swordscrossed.org/node/GoRight/my_comments
Note the lack of participation on my part for about 3 months. If BR's theory is correct this place should be booming, but of course this conversation suggests just the opposite. Looking at Centinel and Corph's contributions they seem to have been fairly quiet as well. So, BR, what gives? Hint: Someone's full of crap and it ain't any of us.
You know what I've noticed? The level of participation here is, in general, directly proportional to the number of Red Bars actively contributing at any given time. I think that's because it's no fun to just interact with the choir, so to speak. The best interchanges are between ideological opponents.
So, why the drop off in Red Bar participation? I don't know, but if others are like me they are just sick of politics right now. Obama's a total waste of space and there's nothing we can do about it other than wait for 2012 to roll around. I might get stirred up to fight a particular issue here and there, but for the most part I got more important and more interesting things to do than to sit around watching Obama embarass himself (and the rest of the country with him). I'm opting to just ignore him as much as possible at this point.
To be honest I don't think that there is anything I could do to improve our chances in 2012 beyond just letting Obama have what he wants. It's clear that he is going to drive his Presidency into the ground, so I just plan to get out of the way. For example, Obama has a filibuster proof Senate and he still can't get his health care plan through. How pathetic is that?
He's more interested in seeing himself on TV than worrying about actually doing anything useful. He's made Bush look absolutely fiscally responsible, he's thrown missile defense into the circular file and gotten nothing in return, he's managed to turn Afghanistan from a clear win into a struggle for survival ... literally pulling defeat there from the jaws of victory, he's driven unemployment up to the highest levels in 20+ years if I remember correctly, and the list just goes on and on. With a record like that I don't have to do anything to make him look like a fool, he's doing a fine job of that on his own.
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4I didn't bother reading most
I didn't bother reading most of GR's comment, but it's funny to see that he is still incapable of speaking without making a logical error to which he is utterly oblivious, and doing so with great certainty and passion (lol). He doesn't realize that if he, Centinel (and he may actually BE Centinel), ML and to some extent Corph killed SC -- damaged it beyond repair -- then the fact that a drop off in his/their comments (and by the way, not so sure of the latter premise) didn't lead to a revival of SC doesn't disprove the view that he and the others killed it. Duh. Thanks for playing, GR. Good luck ruining other blogs if you find any.
I am afraid the evidence, sir, ...
is firmly against you. If anyone has poisoned the well here, it is you.
Yep, you're a paragon of maturity ... well perhaps for a second grader. :-P
I don't think I have ever seen you discuss anything in a mature reasoned manner, despite all your transparent lies to the contrary. Please, make a few posts without calling someone stupid or immature and that actually makes some kind of a substantive point and then get back to me.
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4I don't think I have ever
My history on SC shows an abundance of evidence refuting your emphatic assertion, and as you know, it's easy enough to check (my posts and tracking). So, as always, you are full of crap. Yes, you and those other few individuals are largely responsible for the decline of SC. No, I'm not interested in participating here (seeking substantive discussions) anymore unless there is some initiative to change course, reduce/elminate the degree to which you and the others can pollute this site, at least proportionate to the volume of comments from folks engaging is a reasonable degree of good faith and making a reasonable degree of sense.
Any post that contains something like ...
this is mutually exclusive with "discussing anything in a mature reasoned manner". I can't remember the last time I saw you post anything that didn't attack someone in some way. At least 95% of your posts contain ad hominem attacks on others. This is what creates a toxic atmosphere, not anything I do.
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4See what I mean? Unbelievable
See what I mean? Unbelievable how you can so consistently, so obliviously make no sense while being so confident that you're making some great point. Listen, idiot, I wasn't claiming that my comment to you above WAS the evidence of my discussing things in a reasoned manner; I was obviously referring you to the abundance of easy-to-access evidence from other threads. The quality of that evidence is not dependent on anything I say to you on this thread -- get it? That said, my pointing out that evidence, which refutes your assertion, does constitute a sensible response. So basically you are unable to control your exhibition of your idiocy because you are, on various occasions, (1) completely oblivious to how illogical, irrelevant, or contrary to the facts your argument is and/or (2) you realize your argument is invalid, but you disingenuously struggling to create the appearance that you have some valid argument (mostly to try to save face personally, and to some extent in some cases to stick to hyperpartisan talking points).
Anyone who wishes can check the history of my comments on SC, including threads of my diaries and others, and can see quite clearly that, particularly prior to SC being turned into some moronic, hyperpartisan, insecure ego, bad faith food fight by you and those few others, I had many great exchanges with a variety of folks. But don't let that stop you from persisting with an assertion that is clearly contradicted by the evidence. It never has. Again, thanks a pantload for ruining what used to be an oasis of quality discussion in the blogosphere.
[edit: and again, civility and good faith should not be confused, nor should lack of the former be seen as the root cause of SC's decline. It was lack of the latter, combined with stupidity, coming from you and a few other high volume commenters several months back, that was the root cause and primary factor.]
My comment refers to ALL of your posts ...
not just ones in this thread. This should have been obvious, and most likely was to everyone else.
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4The Inadvertent Idiocy
The Inadvertent Idiocy Perpetual Motion Machine that is GR just...well, keeps on goin'. When someone (you in this case) makes an assertion that clearly contradicts readily available evidence, a response (by me in this case) referring the speaker and anyone else to that evidence is a sensible reply that is not rendered unreasonable by stating explicitly that the speaker is full of crap. Additionally, simply saying that you are full of crap without even referring to that evidence would not have changed the quality of that evidence and degree to which it refutes your assertion. And again, your point about civility is confused.
I could explain further why your statement is yet another example of your idiocy (and possibly bad faith retroactive shift in your intended meaning, too), but I won't bother. In any case, you will almost surely respond with yet another obviously moronic comment, so feel free.
Proving Krugman's postulation
"So what did we learn from this moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old."
You can find Krugman's timely comment here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/opinion/05krugman.html?_r=1&hp
Illuminating the mindset on display.
"The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals — ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern." (or express their opinion, apparently).
I'm only half stupid
I know what he means
but Krugman's wandering too far with that column. I love a good salvo at Republicans as much as the next liberal, but he's not that good at it and it only calls his good faith and well-needed economic expertise into question.
I need Krugman to tell me why the stimulus is or isn't working. I can figure out for myself when John Boehner is acting childish.
Krugmans point is frustration.
It is depressing, that the political climate has become so poisoned that offering honest economic advice is like talking to the deaf.
Until one understands that motivation of the opposition, which he points out is an abiding spite there isn't much hope for real economic solutions.
I'm only half stupid
lol -- yeah, because his
lol -- yeah, because his columns/blog posts on economics are such a good-faith application of his expertise! He's a hyperpartisan first and foremost, and an economist second. Good example: www.scrivener.net/2009/08/krugman-versus-krugman-on-deficits-and.html
Perhaps he's hyperpartisan BECAUSE he's an economist
I read the Scrivener post and it doesn't appear to be a good faith analysis.
First, his initial analysis, including his advice to go to fixed mortgage was pretty much right on. So your statement is pretty much, "Yes, he was absolutely right on earlier, but now he's giving me completely different economic advice". Which strikes me as rather strange.
There isn't anything odd about saying that (a) when someone is driving the economy into the toilet, get a fixed rate mortgage and when trying to get the economy going again, worry more about getting the economy back on track than the deficits which can be managed if you have a good economy.
Well, I can't speak to
Well, I can't speak to Scrivener's (Jim Glass') good faith with everything, but I think his central point is valid: there is a blatant, apparently inexplicable discrepancy between Krugman's view of the economic danger of our long-term fiscal imbalance then vs. now (well, inexplicable other than hyperpartisan bias/disingenuousness). The key part of the Krugman 2003 excerpt:
And Krugman 2009 has been persitently downplaying the danger of our long-term fiscal imbalance, even though we are 6 years closer to the onset of the baby boomer bulge driving the aging population to which he refers (baby boomers start hitting 65 in 2011), and even though the current recession and stimulus spending make the fiscal outlook even worse, and even though the new entitlement he is advocating (subsidies to achieve universal coverage) will either add significantly to the fiscal imbalance (if the ostensible future "offsets" don't materialize, as is quite possible and I'd say more likely than not) or will use some/all of those offsets (insofar as they do occur) to offset that incremental spending rather than use them for deficit reduction, making solving the fiscal imbalance problem harder.
It's hard to see how it could be anything other than partisan hypocrisy. I've posted comments on his blog three or four times asking him to explain the discrepancy (and I've done so also on economics blogs that I think he reads, as has Jim Glass), and although he often responds to questions, he has never responded to that one.
[edit: Oh, and I plan to reply on the abortion thread sometime this weekend. Thanks for resuming that discussion with me.]
I see no innate conflict in those two articles
The point quoted in the second article, that the necessity is to stabilize debt seems to be consistent in both articles. That Bush's tax cuts blew the debt up is the issue in the first article.
The point of his second article is not that growing deficits are good, but that the effort to diminish the large debt does not require that we pay it off if we stabilize it in comparison to GDP (something Bush's tax cuts did NOT do).
Think of it in terms of a company. The last CEO gave half the assets out as dividends and put the other half on red in a (lost) game of roulette. Article one is about how this is a bad idea (gasp!)
The new CEO absolutely has to take on new debt to make payroll and keep the business open. This is Dr Krugman (and most economists') Keynesian view of the stimulus package. Something on which he's been quite consistent.
The second article is purely a discussion on how to pay off the new and old debt. Dr Krugman says we don't necessarily have to pay it all off right away. As long as our newly stabilized company is able to grow faster than the interest rate, we can take as long as we need.
You may disagree with Keynesian economics or the size of the stimulus package etc, but there isn't anything inconsistent here.
Let's not confuse Keyensian
Let's not confuse Keyensian stimulus (short-term by nature) with the larger issue of the scale of projected deficits and projected debt-to-GDP over the long term.
In that 2003 column Krugman rightly stated that, even without the exacerbating Bush tax cuts, we already faced a long-term fiscal imbalance that seriously threatened our future economy. Please take a moment to re-read the excerpt in my prior comment to see how emphatic he was about how scary our long-term fiscal outlook was (even before the Bush tax cuts, but to an even greater extent with them) -- meaning how scared we should be of going down the path leading to such growth in deficits and debt-to-GDP, while demographics make it difficult to change course.
In 2009 he has persistently (in at least several columns/blog posts) belittled this same long-term threat even though it has grown more severe -- the demographic time bomb closer to blowing up, and projected long-term deficits and debt-to-GDP being even greater, with less time to adjust.
He is contradicting his earlier (emphatic) argument, and then some. It's that simple. In both cases he is talking about the long-term fiscal outlook: deficits and debt-to-GDP over the long term. In 2003 the long-term fiscal outlook was very bad, and made even worse by the Bush tax cuts, and Krugman rightly said we should be alarmed by the course that we were on. In 2009 the long-term fiscal outlook was yet worse for aforementioned reasons, yet Krugman is basically calling those who are worried about it "chicken littles". Again, it's that simple.
And by the way, pretty much ALL (rational) discussion/debate involving projected deficits and debt is in terms of percent of GDP, so that's a constant, not some different perspective or argument between Krugman's 2003 column and Krugman 2009.
I don't need to read your excerpt
Is ridiculous because he himself states his own worries again in 2009!!! All he is discussing is that while it is quite worrisome, this level of debt can be managed over the long term without draconian measures.
So, in short
2003 Krugman: Debts are a worth worrying over, and it would have been difficult, but possible to cope with them if we acted intelligently. Unfortunately, Bush is not only acting intelligently, he's making it worse.
2009 Krugman: Debts are a worth worrying over, but possible to cope with them if we act intelligently in the future. As evidence, I show that other countries, including our own have been in such situations before and have managed to extricate themselves.
You see a contradiction here for reasons I don't understand; don't be surprised that others don't see it.
Well, I read all that stuff
Well, I read all that stuff plus other stuff Krugman's been writing, plus more of the exchange (in effect) between Krugman and Hamilton, but even leaving aside the latter stuff and using the evidence before us, it's clear that, while you are accusing me of cherry picking and distorting, you are the one doing so to a significant extent. I don't see how someone can objectively review all the quotes you and I have presented here (or the entire columns/posts) and NOT see a contradiction. Krugman 2003 is telling us that the long-term fiscal imbalance resulting from the Bush tax cuts is "really scary", a "looming threat to the federal government's solvency", that such language "may sound alarmist", but isn't, that "the conclusion is inescapable. Without the Bush tax cuts, it would have been difficult to cope with the fiscal implications of an aging population. With those tax cuts, the task is simply impossible. The accident, the fiscal train wreck, is already under way." Krugman 2009 -- when the fiscal outlook is significantly WORSE (in terms of both magnitude and timing) -- (and note that the following 8/23/09 Krugman remarks came BEFORE the 8/28/09 Hamilton response to them, not vice versa, so Hamilton's critique is irrelevant to the question of Krugman's inconsistency) is saying that that same kind of talk today (about the ten-year projection in the context of our long-term fiscal imbalance) as we saw from him in 2003 is mere "hysteria" ("There's been some hysteria" about it), that it "is bad", but can "be handled", and that "to make the debt look scary", one has to ignore the lesson from history that it's nothing to be scared about ("dismiss the post-World -War II experience, even though it turns out that the 50s offer a quite good lesson"). krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/how-big-is-9-trillion/
Geez, Louise, man. No contradiction?? You can't even understand how I can see a contradition?? You've got to be kidding me. How about some objectivity here? Unless you are going to try to argue that our fiscal outlook is better now than it was in 2003, how you can see no contradiction from Krugman is beyond me. I don't question your sincerity at all, but you seem to be either misunderstanding something or suffering from substantial bias.
Oh, and his use of the post-WWII experience in that way is so contrived it's laughable, but that's beside the point that he's showing a contradiction. It's just his rhetorical device for presenting a different view now. (The history of that era existed in 2003 as well, and I'm sure he was familiar with it then.)
[edit below]
Now, you can say essentially, "Hey, he was worried then and he's worried now (He says now that the outlook is 'bad'), so there's no inconsistency", but this is obviously glossing over and muddying up the matter of degree and what his language and tone were in 2003 vs. 2009. Obviously there are degrees of concern/worry. Let's say:
1. A bit concerned
2. Quite concerned
3. Really worried
4. Hysterical (this implies not only the extreme of worry/fear but also irrationality -- the absence of a reasonable basis for this level of worry/fear).
In 2003, with the Bush tax cuts, the long-term fiscal outlook was very bad -- literally unsustainable, and eventually requiring large, painful, and politically difficult sacrifices in tax increases and cuts in projected spending -- as reflected in long-term projections of deficits and debt-to-GDP*, and in the number of years remaining before the demographic time bomb hits and the upward debt spiral gathers momentum, in other words, the length of time we had to change course and start making those sacrifices at a lower annual level than if we waited until many years later, and the distance we are from a significant probability of a crisis hitting. In 2009, all of the above is significantly WORSE. Yet in 2009 he is obviously expressing a much lower level of worry/fear than he is in 2009, and he is characterizing those expressing his 2003 level of worry in 2009 as "hysterical". No contradiction? You can't even understand how I can see a contradiction? Come on.
* Using "debt held by the public", which is what matters, not gross debt.
Context is relevant
I see him as a baselined 3 (Really concerned) in both cases with a +/- 1 modifier for based on his perception of the policies of who is in charge.
In 2003, the people in charge were acting in a very counter productive manner that he believed would inevitably to disaster. In 2009, they were acting in a more constructive manner.
Imagine that you're in a car with a couple of friends driving at night and realize that you are stuck in the middle of nowhere and running a bit low on gas. "Friend" #1 is driving and figures that if he closes his eyes and takes a swig of scotch everything will be great. A Bit Worrisome becomes Time to Panic. It is not unreasonable here to say that it is impossible that you will get out of your problem.
After #1 puts the car into an embankment you have less gas and the car is banged up so it won't drive as well. However Friend #2 takes the wheel and slows down. He looks at the GPS and notes that there is a small town not too far away if you take the next right. It'll be slow going to preserve gas and you might need to call AAA once you get in cell phone coverage. You're still concerned but you get the feeling that as long as you pay attention and keep friend #1 tied up in the back so he doesn't seize the wheel (he's currently screaming that you are all doomed seeing as that you are driving with your eyes open and sober!!!) things will be OK.
You are still running low on gas and you don't know anybody at the small town, and if you look only at the state of the car independent of the driver, you are actually in a worse state than you were in the beginning. But you aren't being inconsistent by feeling better than you did before.
Clearly this example is exaggerated for effect, but the principle is the same. A baseline worrisome situation that is mostly out of your personal control with a level of worry highly modified by your perception of the person(s) with the most impact on the response to the situation.
I never said that I don't see how you see a contradiction. I'm saying that the contradiction is not manifest. Others who share a perception on the Bush vs Obama administrations' current and projected policies on our economy similar to Dr Krugman will not see an inconsistency. (And I'm not getting into an economic debate as to the legitimacy of those perceptions. That's out of scope)
Finally, given that Dr Krugman has loudly critiqued the Obama administration (and candidacy) when he disagreed with them, he can't really be labeled a hyper-partisan. You can call him ideological, and even somewhat partisan, but not hyper-partisan.
thanks
Well put.
I'm only half stupid
Wow, you are REALLY
Wow, you are REALLY stretching and grasping at phantom straws. Again, I don’t question your sincerity, but it sure seems at this point that you really, REALLY want to find and present some argument in defense of Krugman that implies that he hasn’t contradicted himself (You earlier wrote “You see a contradiction here for reasons I don't understand; don't be surprised that others don't see it” and now “I never said that I don't see how you see a contradiction. I'm saying that the contradiction is not manifest.”).
Look, this really is simple (and you’ll have to forgive my repetition). In 2003 Krugman was expressing great worry/fear over the projected long-term fiscal imbalance (deficits and debt-to-GDP) once the Bush tax cuts were factored in (making an already severe and extremely difficult-to-solve problem downright impossible to solve and thus putting us firmly on course for extremely adverse consequences), telling readers that he is “terrified about what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits... we're looking at a fiscal crisis that will drive interest rates sky-high”, describing this fiscal outlook as a “really scary…threat to the federal government's solvency”, saying “the conclusion is inescapable. Without the Bush tax cuts, it would have been difficult to cope with the fiscal implications of an aging population. With those tax cuts, the task is simply impossible. The accident, the fiscal train wreck, is already under way”.
In 2009 Krugman was looking at a significantly WORSE projected long-term fiscal imbalance in terms of the numbers and in terms of the difficulty of solving it and avoiding extremely adverse consequences, and, in response to (legitimate) worry about this fiscal outlook, he insists emphatically and persistently that, while the outlook is “bad”, it is clearly something we “can handle”, and that those who were expressing a level of concern similar to his in 2003 were “hysterical” and that the only way “to make the debt look scary” is to ignore the clear lesson of history to the contrary.
Your arguments on this question have been irrelevant and invalid – presuming that Krugman is referring to different things in 2003 vs. 2009 rather than accepting the reality that in both cases he was referring essentially to the long-term fiscal imbalance (projected deficits and debt-to-GDP), as well as presuming earlier that Krugman was merely responding to a straw man argument from Hamilton, even though the key statements by Krugman (and the quotes I presented) preceded Hamilton’s critique of those Krugman statements. As I’ve always said, I consider you an outstanding commenter in general. But your arguments on this matter are a notable exception.
What would be Krugman's motive for this apparent insincerity? For over a year he has been pushing hard for a much larger and longer-lasting (deficit-financed) stimulus, and he is also a strong advocate for health insurance “reform” that would significantly exacerbate our long-term fiscal imbalance. He wants those policies adopted (and he may want to appeal in particular to a like-minded audience, although I don’t know the guy’s personal marketing strategy), and I assume he opposed the Bush tax cuts on ideological as well as economic grounds, and he is apparently willing to mislead people about the trade-offs (benefits, costs, risks) of alternative policies if it is conducive to achievement of policies he favors and defeat of policies he opposes. In other words, he apparently believes that a public that is well-informed on what the actual trade-offs are would sometimes choose policies that he opposes and reject policies that he favors, and he thinks the ends (the policies he considers “best” based not only on economics but also on his personal values and priorities, such as those regarding the distribution of income in our society, which may or may not be shared by enough people to get a well-informed public to share his policy preferences) justify his misleading means.
As a note, he also has an economics-based reason for supporting heavy, sustained stimulus (in addition to what I think is his ideology/values-based preference for trading off more long-term cost to reduce short-term suffering of the unemployed), which is his Keynesian view of the effects of such stimulus. But even here – although I assume he is sincere in his Keynesian economic assumptions regarding stimulus, he is misleading people about the dangers and costs of our long-term fiscal imbalance (or at the very least significantly contradicting his 2003 perspective on our long-term fiscal imbalance, and I presume his 2003 view was at least much closer to sincere and objective than his 2009 assertions) in his advocacy of such stimulus rather than just presenting his Keyenesian arguments regarding such stimulus.
Oh, and Re:
"Given that Dr Krugman has loudly critiqued the Obama administration (and candidacy) when he disagreed with them, he can't really be labeled a hyper-partisan. You can call him ideological, and even somewhat partisan, but not hyper-partisan."
That kind of argument is common when folks are defending a conservative who is sometimes critical of Republicans for being insufficiently conservative or a liberal who is sometimes critical of Democrats for being insufficiently liberal, and the argument is either excessively vague (obscuring it's narrowness) or just misses the point. First, "partisan" does not refer only to party affiliation; it can refer to an ideological "side" or even to one side of a particular issue. Second, the way I use the term "hyperpartisan" as distinguished from "partisan" is in the degree of bias and/or insincerity, not in the level or even consistency of advocacy or criticism. See my elaboration, in response to being asked about the distinction (per my usage) at theforvm.org/diary/bird-dog/partisanship-perceptions-and-resistance-facts-updated#comment-161930
Let me rephrase
Re:
vs
What I was intending to say (and admittedly did a poor job) in the first case was that I didn't understand why you saw the contradiction as unquestionable.
You ask
My goodness!!! I'm Shocked!!! An ideological pundit is attempting to influence policy!!! :-)
I don't view hyperbole as being equivalent to insincerity. I think that Dr Krugman sincerely believed that the Bush policies were poison and disaster was inevitable if those policies were not reversed (i.e. Both now and in 2003, the situation is such that the free market cannot correct itself if there are bad policies in place but can (with difficulty) if good policies (as he sees them) are in place.
Then consider that there may simply be a difference in axioms or semantics instead of my just suddenly spouting nonsense for some reason. From a purely Socratic perspective, where the speaker is a disinterested observer you would have a point. But there is nothing odd, out of place or inconsistent for someone to view a situation to be less dire when they approve of the policies in place.
I'm an expert in several (non-economic) fields. I can easily imagine situations were I would make similar statements about impending disaster if changes weren't made. Then, if I or someone of whom I approved were put in charge, I might say "Hey everyone, those issues that I yelled about before, they've been mitigated and we'll be able to fix them. No need to panic" And I wouldn't be dishonest or insincere or inconsistent for doing so.
I can only refer you to my
I can only refer you to my earlier comments, and say that they still apply as much after your most recent comment as they did before. I don't want to be even more repetitive and I don't have much/anything more to add.
As for your clarification re: your view of my view of others' views of Krugman's view :-), I understand your clarification. I do indeed think that any reasonably objective view of the evidence before us would be that Krugman has very substantially -- I'd say blatantly -- contradicted himself. So I am indeed not only saying that I think there is a clear, very substantial contradiction, but also saying that I don't consider disagreement with me on that matter reasonable, and certainly not on the basis of arguments you've presented (which, including your elaboration of one of them above, are still irrelevant to the constant in this picture, which is the metric about which Krugman was commenting: the projected long-term fiscal imbalance, regardless of who will be president next year or in two or three years).
My guess is that you like Krugman and/or share his policy preferences on related matters, and bias is getting the best of you. Whether it's that or some other source, something seems to be getting in the way of what I'd consider a reasonably objective assessment of this matter. I suppose it's possible that I'm misunderstanding you and/or vice versa, but my guess is some bias on your part that's getting in the way of a reasonable assessment.
So unless you'd like to add something new to which I can respond with something new, I guess I'm done with this one, and I can turn to that abortion thread (replying to you there) probably tomorrow or Tuesday.
In and Out
Hello. Just passing through on a quiet friday night. Hope all is well in your corners of the world.
Krugman lost all cred with me. I can't believe I have actually read some or all of two of his books.
Krugman is/was a brilliant economist. He has much to offer in that field when nobody is listening besides other economists in peer reviewed work. He has done ground breaking research that has rightly gotten him awards, acclaim and respect from fellow economists.
But that is not the Krugman we all know and read about in the NYT and elsewhere. That is Krugam the hyperpartisan Democrat and quasi political operative. He uses the title and fame from his day job to selectively comment on economic events from a hyperpartisan (almost angry) POV in a highly visible national media pulpit. He likes it. It makes him rich. It makes him famous. He wants more.
BR has a valid point here. Krugman is basically adjusting his language and focus of his ire to who is in the WH. Partisan Poltics requires somewhat of a deliberate shut down or dimming of the critical mind to make it all work out and sleep at night. Krugman sleeps very well. Does he know better? Of course he does. But that doesn't mean he is going to comment accordingly. He is biased. More biased than anyone on this blog. YES! Even more than <insert name>!
He is basically making less of a big deal about something that he made a huge deal about before because his party is in power. Yes, yes, yes....backed into a corner he'll admit it's still bad....for the record. But that's not how he approaches it. Like BR said: Democrat first, economist second. Being a HUUUUGE Dermocrat makes his life more interesting and lucrative. His priorities are adjusted accordingly.
And to whoever said upthread that he is hyperpartisan because he is an economist, I say no. Being an economist normally has the opposite effect. Krugman has always been a Democrat. But he's gone from a moderate, fair minded Democrat to the screaching hyperpartisan that he is within a few years of Bush's first term. He's drunk on it now. He's Glen Beck with a PhD.
Sign out.....
Hey there, John. Nice to
Hey there, John. Nice to "see" you.
Ugh, another one.
Got any criticism of substance for Krugman? We already have a poster who likes to throw around unsubstantiated labels like hyperpartisan and biased. Who constantly confuses moderation with reasonableness and accuracy.
We agree that he's off-topic and outside his area of expertise when calling Republicans childish (incidentally, are they not?). But have you considered that perhaps his near-universal condemnation of Republicans stems not from a desire for fame or fortune ("makes his life more interesting"? WTF?), but from a dispassionate assessment of Republican ideas and policies themselves? Probabaly not if you're a faith-based libertarian, I suppose. Unlike say, Fox News pundits under Republicans, Krugman hasn't gotten any softer on Democrats. BR's feeble attempt to find Krugman hypocrisy on deficit spending was easily refuted.
Here's the liberal take on this miserable economic decade: W's policies were horrible, and he was extremely dishonest in selling them. Krugman righfully used a harsh tone when describing them, and he was vindicated by the sluggish growth, balooning deficits and the ultimate crash. If you're tempted to criticize Obama stimulus spending (which was really Bush bust debt fallout), I would only take it seriously if you're able to sketch out a credible scenario by which the economy recovers in 2009 without massive stimulus.
Krugman's not really a HUUUGE Democrat, just a virulent anti-Republican. Justifiably so.
There is a difference between disagreement and accusation
Of inconsistency. Dr Krugman has consistently (as far as I've seen) stated that tax cuts are an inefficient method for stimulating the economy. I understand that you probably prefer spending cuts to close the deficit, but that is simply a disagreement.
Other than that, all I see is standard, by the book risk management. Back before the start of a massive recession-almost-depression, the massive deficit growth caused by massive increases in war spending (not the most efficient form of spending) and massive tax increases was up near the top of the list of economic issues. Then when a major crash occurred, being a Keynesian (I'm guessing you are not), a smart stimulus package to avoid a major depression became the number one priority. While pressing for that stimulus package, Dr Krugman remained consistent in the statement that tax cuts were a poor way to do it.
As for your "backed into a corner" statement, that isn't really honest given that he said that it was bad in his second sentence, first paragraph of his original article. Before anyone had a chance to back him into anything. While he may be adjusting his language between the intervening years, in addition to being an election, there was also a major economic event.
As I think I made pretty
As I think I made pretty clear upthread, in both 2003 and 2009 Krugman was referring to essentially the SAME THING: the projected long-term fiscal imbalance in terms of the numbers and in terms of the difficulty of solving it and avoiding extremely adverse consequences. In 2003 he basically said we were almost certainly doomed. In 2009 when SAME THING was signfificantly WORSE, he is essentially urging people not to consider it as bad as he considered it (or claimed to consider it) back in 2003. It's not clear if you're still somehow trying to argue that Krugman is not clearly exhibiting substantially inconsistency on this central point or if you are shifting to other, related topics (Krugman's views on whether or not deficit-financed stimulus is good, and whether tax cuts or increased spending serves as better stimulus), but if you are still arguing that there is no clear inconsistency from Krugman on how bad a given long-term fiscal imbalance is, I just don't know how you could continue to see it that way.
And we disagree from what appear to be axiomatic principles
Given the well accepted (even if not universally so) concept that stimulus spending is necessary in a major recession or depression, it doesn't seem inconsistent that before the recession to say that we need to deal with the deficit, but then during the recession to say that regardless of how bad the deficit is, it pales in comparison the the damage caused by not having a stimulus package. I.e. deficit may be bad, but not making the deficit worse is even worse!
The reason I see it this way is because I am an expert in risk mitigation (albeit in a non-economic arena) and so I see nothing intrinsically inconsistent about saying that a particular course of action increases risk and then, when that risk is realized, actually requiring that we increase the factor that brought the risk about in the first place! While working the major risk, you need to mitigate the increased risk brought about by your actions and make sure to fix things after the crisis is over. (I can give you examples in my area of expertise that will be imperfect analogies if you really want)
As far as I can tell, the inconsistency you see seems to be that Dr Krugman used to call the deficit the number 1 risk, and now suddenly he is acting like it isn't the number 1 risk anymore. Inconsistency!!!! Um... something riskier came along so when trying to get people to focus on the new top priority, you need to tell people to ignore the new #2 for a while.
You seem to be confusing the
You seem to be confusing the question of the worthiness of Krugman's policy argument -- presumably that more stimulus and thus higher deficits in the short term would mitigate rather than exacerbate the long-term fiscal imbalance (and/or improve our well-being by some broader measure) -- with the question of whether or not Krugman is being clearly inconsistent in his assessment of the harm/risk of a given level of severity of the long-term fiscal imbalance problem (either in purely numerical terms or more broadly considering the numbers, timing, drivers of the imbalance, and political, economic, and lifestyle difficulty of solving the problem). The latter is what I've been addressing, not the former.
Again, this really is quite clear and simple:
1. The long-term harm/risk of the current projected long-term fiscal imbalance -- the severity of the problem, the difficulty and pain involved in solving it, the risk of a crisis occurring, etc. -- is undoubtedly even WORSE today then it was in 2003, yet Krugman clearly characterized the 2003 fiscal outlook as associated with much greater harm/risk than the level of harm/risk he is associating with the current fiscal outlook, and is characterizing the current fiscal outlook as significantly more manageable than how he characterized the LESS severe 2003 fiscal outlook. And he's urging people not to associate nearly as much harm/risk to the current, significantly WORSE fisca outlook as he associated with the 2003 fiscal outlook.
2. The argument Krugman offers today (dubious as it is) relates not to some changes in conditions that would make the same (or even greater) numerical long-term imbalance less harmful/risky or more manageable, nor to some new knowledge he's obtained, but rather is based on our history in the years and decades immediately following WWII, a history with which he must have been quite familiar already in 2003.
3. Whether or not Krugman is right that we'd be better off overall or perhaps even that our long-term fiscal imbalance would be less severe if we increase deficits in the short term via stimulus is a separate matter, having no bearing on the question of whether or not Krugman is being clearly inconsistent in the level of harm/risk he associates with a given degree of long-term fiscal imbalance and related factors.
Krugman could have said, "OK folks, remember all the harm/risk I associated with the long-term fiscal outlook in 2003 and how difficult I said/implied it would be to manage, well the long-term fiscal outlook now is even worse and thus the harm/risk is even greater and the prospects of managing it without substantial harm (perhaps a crisis) are even lower. BUT I believe our fiscal outlook [and/or overall well-being over time] will be better with more stimulus and higher deficits in the short-term then without such stimulus, and here's why."
But Krugman didn't do that. Instead, if he was being fully sincere and reasonably objective in 2003, then he's being grossly insincere or grossly biased today in his representation of what harm/risk he associates with our current long-term fiscal outlook. Again, he offers no explanation that accounts for this marked discrepancy between his view of harm/risk to our future of the less severe fiscal outlook in 2003 vs. the more severe outlook today. Clearly, he has presented (in 2003, today, or both) a distorted picture of the level of long-term harm/risk associated with a given level of long-term fiscal imbalance, and of how manageable a given level of long-term fiscal imbalance is.
Hopefully at this point you can see, understand and appreciate the validity of the fundamental distinction I've made above as well as my point and argument regarding a clear inconsistency. If not, I probably can't explain it any more clearly and convincincly (or so one would think) than I already have.
Clearly yes, not convincingly.
I agree with most of your points, but not your conclusion (the reason I consider our disagreement axiomatic.) I think you are applying an academic paper standard to columns.
This in particular is true
Absolutely! If only he had written something like that
between the two articles in question...
Not exactly what you wanted him to write, but he did write an article explaining when and why his perspective on deficits had changed and what conditions would cause him to revert to form. Were he writing a paper for review, he should have stated all of those comments again in the latest paper, but for a column, I don't think that level of completeness is necessary (and regardless, the accusation should have been incompleteness, not inconsistency)
Anyways, rather than this tired old debate, how about having a discussion where we mostly agree. When did you last see a spoof as good as Centinel? I mean, whoever it is is going a bit far (not quite believable) but still a piece of performance art yes?
You continue to confuse
You continue to confuse matters that I've very clearly distinguished from each other.
You quote me, and then reply with an implied claim that he had indeed (in that other column) said what I suggested would have been honest and not inconsistent, yet your supposed substantiation is just a non sequitur that misses my entire point. I'm not faulting him for failing to make an argument as to why he thinks deficit-financed stimulus is a good idea amid this recession. Obviously he has presented such arguments, many times. That obviously wasn't the key part of what I suggested would have been honest and not inconsistent with his 2003 assertions. Obviously the key part would have been some consistency in the level of long-term harm/risk he associated with a given level of long-term fiscal imbalance and related factors.
Unfortunately, I don't think I can improve on the explanations I've already provided. I can only refer you back to my prior comments, and suggest that perhaps you re-read them after a breather so whatever mental block is there now may be gone then.
As for Centinel, are you saying you think he's a put on (a deliberate idiot), or was that just a colorful way of saying he's an idiot? And if the former, wouldn't you have to suspect the same of GoRight and MissL?
[edit: Oh, and send me your email address so I can let you know when I've gotten back to that abortion thread (sorry for the delay). I'm at PoliticoNow [at] aol [dot] com ]
I think we just have a different standard
I don't use the word inconsistent in this context (Inconstant perhaps) because hyperbole doesn't mean as much to me as the actual policy recommendations (which are significantly less subjective or mood based). If I recall properly, after extracting the hyperbole from the 2003 article, the actual policy suggestions that people should really get a fixed mortgage and there was a strong implication that the Clinton tax rates would be more fiscally responsible. i.e. In 2009, his actual policy recommendations was that we did not need to anything so draconian as doubling the tax rate of every American.
Put together, we need to at least X but less than Y. As long as X < Y, I don't see this as inconsistent. Or to be more precise, I find no inconsistency in his policy recommendations. If you want to say his level of hyperbole is inconsistent, well... OK... I suppose that is fair, but that is the nature of hyperbole... it varies based on non-rational factors.
As for the other discussion.... I've decided to simply assume that people who make such nonsense are spoofs in order to retain a basic level of faith in humanity. No, I don't see the same thing with MissL or even GR. They act somewhat as archetypes,.MissL is a provocateur (and quite up front about it). She makes a point without wanting to debate the point (which, while I understand can be annoying, is her right). Likewise GR often makes arguments simply because he knows they will get a rise out of those that disagree with him. But it simply doesn't rise to the same level of sublime nonsense.
Oh, and I'll try to send you my email later. I've got to sleep and do a long run tomorrow, so probably in the afternoon.
Wow you're a patient one.
I admire your willingness to rephrase and apologize for your supposed lack of clarity. I'm not sure it's necessary.
Corph, I'd say you're
Corph, I'd say you're embarrassing yourself except that there's hardly anyone left on SC to witness and see your pathetic responses for what they are. You obviously don't understand my arguments or even what my point is*, nor the relationship between knocienz' arguments and my point and arguments, nor my arguments in response to knocienz, and you are obviously unable to articulate any substantive, meaningful refutation or diminishment of my point or arguments (or support for knocienz' arguments in response to mine), yet you obviously feel compelled (on a personal and emotional level) to take sides against me. It's quite silly and pathetic. But don't let my pointing out to you how obvious it is (to anyone with even half a brain and even a bit of objectivity) stop you. Keep goin'.
* As one piece of evidence that you haven't a clue even what my point is, you wrote earlier:
I didn't bother responding (you're generally not worth it), but I will now. Not only was I NOT accusing Krugman of "hypocrisy on deficit spending" -- i.e., the desirability/undesirability of deficits now vs. in 2003 -- but I was clear in making the distinction between that matter and the matter on which I WAS charging (and quite clearly demonstrating) hypocrisy on Krugman's part (associated long-term harm/risk for a given level of projected long-term fiscal imbalance). I assume, though, that (1) all this is still over your head and you still have little/no understanding of what I'm talking about, and (2) that won't stop you from assuming -- or at least claiming -- out of emotional convenience that I am wrong. So go right on ahead if that fills some emotional need of yours.
I know you can be more constructive BR
The only way that I think that there is going to be any level of substantive discussion here is if we respect each other's points of view (or rather, only respond to people when we can respect some part of their point of view)
Look at what Corph actually wrote that got your escalatory response; it was a statement of respect for a fellow poster, based around actions that you presumably find praiseworthy, a willingness to reanalyze one's own words/argument for clarity or consistency.
We all suffer from this temptation
but it doesn't really get us anywhere useful. I think you could help revive this site if you spent as much time extracting and highlighting the good points that people make (because several of the folks you dislike do make good points) as well as the points you consider inconsistent or erroneous. You used to do that a lot more, but I suspect you've gotten more cynical. If you really perceive nothing of value from someone, just try ignoring them.
I could be wrong, but I think
I could be wrong, but I think you're being a bit naive. I think Corph's point and objective is probably (at least primarily) to say "Wow, Knocienz, you really are being extremely patient and nice with that persistent jerk B Rational whose 'feeble attempt' at an argument you've clearly refuted". In other words, Corph is trying to insult me, not to engage substantively and not even primarily to compliment you. I don't know how much of the history of my criticism of Corph and his responses you've seen, so perhaps you lack that context, not that I think it's necessary to see that Corph's comment (and the one prior) show his contribution to this discussion to be nothing more than personal attacks and a few crude partisan talking points.
Although I put Corph in a different category than ML, GR and Centinel, and I'd say the latter three probably did more to ruin SC than Corph, Corph played a role as well. I tried pretty hard several months ago to get folks here to "save" SC, but the remaining few didn't have much/any interest in changing course. I tried again on this thread swordscrossed.org/story/20090917/hey-guys#comment-113108
. But until changes are made, SC will probably never return to the quality it had, nor to any significant quantity, whether or not I give Corph the benefit of the doubt and try to engage him constructively and have an intelligent, substantive discussion/debate with him (not that I think he'd be likely to engage accordingly). So no, I'm not interested in trying to put lipstick on a pig, especially a pig that will probably just immediately lick off the lipstick anyway. I come to SC these days just (1) if there's a discussion of how to save SC / get it back to some decent level of quality and quantity, or (2) if I see a quality commenter from the good old days (e.g., you) has posted on something I'd like to discuss/debate. Other than that, I don't bother participating on SC anymore. It's basically just the (very slow-moving) playground of the problem individuals who ruined SC -- ML, Centinel, GR, Corph -- and (to a lesser extent) a couple of others who have stuck around despite those problem individuals.
You do understand
that debt = cumulative real deficits right? And that if you want to make projections on long-term fiscal imbalances, it's impossible to do so without accounting for the nature of current deficit spending? Perhaps, also, long-term interest rate increases aren't as much of a concern when Americans have just lost $13 trillion in real estate value (2009) as when the economy has been growing for almost a year (2003)? And of course, Krugman isn't arguing against fixed-rate mortgages now, either.
Good deficit spending can improve the long-term debt outlook by making the economy grow more. This should be obvious. Bad deficit spending doesn't. Mindlessly regurgitating those intrepid right-wing hypocrisy hunters might make you feel all balanced and rational, but it's an illusion.
Since BR has used multiple epithets against me, I won't feel too bad about doing a little amateur psychoanalysis. Many of you may have noticed that Mr. Rational is fawningly polite to anyone who agrees with whatever point he's trying to make (including myself on one or two occasions). And extremely condescending tho those who don't. He loves self-reinforcing his posts
and assuming ignorance on my (or anyone else who disagrees with him) part:
I like the term "emotional convenience". It's an interesting phrase to find among the repetitive buzzwords and run-on sentences that are signs of a clouded thought process. Yes, my complimenting knocienz on his restraint is clearly an emotional outlet to bash BR by proxy and implication. See, I get so worked up in my posts that I feel the need to call other posters unintelligent, biased and emotionally immature. That's how I and my partisan allies destroyed SC, despite the fact that the very name "swords crossed" kind of evokes some kind of rhetorical battle.
BR, really, this site isn't for you. I'd suggest you register the domain www.droningpedantswithselfesteemissues.org
and start your own forum where you can make all the rules.
It is amazing and
It is amazing and simultaneously amusing and sad that there are people such as you, Corph, who can be so vocal, emphatic and confident that they are presenting very strong, relevant, valid arguments while oblivious to the fact that they are actually only demonstrating consistent, fundamental confusion on a variety of points. That is exactly what you just did.
First, you continue to spew irrelevancies and demonstrate confusion regarding my point and arguments, even though I've been quite clear both initially and in response to such confusion. I guess nothing I say can get you to understand the distinction (among assertions/implications by Krugman) that I've made and clearly explained repeatedly in my dialogue with knocienz and again in response to you. I've already very clearly explained that even if Krugman believes that (to use your phrasing) "Good deficit spending can improve the long-term debt outlook" and that deficit-financed stimulus right now represents such an opportunity, that matter is separate from the question of whether or not Krugman has been consistent in the level of long-term harm/risk he associates with a given level of projected long-term fiscal imbalance. So all the blah, blah, blah you spewed is irrelevant to my points and argument, yet you keep throwing it out there as if it's not only relevant, but a refutation of what I've said. But if you don't get it by now, I guess you never will (and if you suddenly did, you most likely wouldn't admit it anyway).
Re:
Another thing about which you are apparently oblivious is the great degree to which you rely on (and are apparently intellectually limited to) your own "side's" hyperpartisan talking points, even (ironically) as you decry those of the other hyperpartisan side and (doubly ironically, with a dose of projection) falsely and completely baselessly accuse others of merely parroting such talking points.
Re:
You really should apply your efforts at "amateur psychoanalysis" to yourself, because, in addition to the aforementioned projection regarding reflexive use of (and dependence on) hyperpartisan talking points, you also apparently engage in (at best) cherry-picking and gross distortion to support points you feel an emotional need to make, or (at worst) just making stuff up for such support. What SCers, past and present, with any reasonable degree of objectivity, know is that what you've just written is obviously complete baloney. In fact, I've always been (here on SC and elsewhere) most complimentary and appreciative of anyone who raises a tough, high quality challenge to some point/argument I've made. Additionally, here on SC and elsewhere, I'm quick to point out faulty argumentation of anyone who agrees with some conclusion or position I've expressed, but for invalid reasons. It is laughably absurd for you to assert that how polite vs. condescending I am in response to particular comments and individuals is based on whether or not they agree with the point I'm making rather than on the quality of the comment from that individual (and of that individual's comments generally). And that from the guy who wrote:
When I quoted that back to you recently you wrote that "Since I made that comment I've had some constructive exchanges with the redbars", implicitly stating that you now think you were way wrong then -- at that time ironically projecting extreme hyperpartisanship and unreasonableness while obliviously demonstrating it yourself -- without actually acknowledging that you consider that statement of yours wrong, and while actually turning it into an opportunity to compliment yourself.
As for my stating that I've explained something clearly, including clearly pointing out and correcting the apparent confusion/misunderstanding of someone else, and that a particular person (e.g., you) doesn't get it and probably still won't get it (based on related comments and history of comments from the person in question -- e.g., you), particularly when that person is probably really just desperately seeking to get back at me for something rather than even doing his best (limited as his best is) to understand what I'm saying, if the shoe fits, wear it.
Re:
Your "partisan allies"? If you mean the same partisan side, obviously not. If you mean fellow hyperpartisans (albeit on opposite sides), then yes. Of course, by "hyperpartisan" I'm not referring to being a vigorous advocate for some ideological or party "side", but rather reflexively and unshakeably so and without engaging in good faith discussion/debate to any reasonable degree. Very poor argumentation in terms of relevance and logical validity from the same individuals also hurt SC, but the biggest problem is the lack of good faith, which to some extent exacerbates the problem of poor argumentation.
Now, as for the name "swords crossed", first of all I never thought it was an ideal name, since I like the idea of "discussion/debate", meaning joint exploration of an issue, and debate not for the purpose of "winning" but to challenge and bring out the best in arguments on each/all sides, with some or all possibly learning something in the process (as well as enjoying the intellectual stimulation of high quality discussion/debate), and perhaps with some/all shifting to some point between one's initial position and some opposing position. But the name isn't bad, and contrary to what you seem to think, it doesn't mean "Come here and reflexively, mindlessly and unalterably spew your side's hyperpartisan talking points, and don't actually address the actual arguments anyone on the other 'side' is making, let alone actually listen to and consider what he has said, just keep hurling talking points, irrelevancies, and non sequiturs." I've been mostly away from SC over the last several months, so if you've made the kind of progress you claim in your interactions with "redbars" (or anyone who isn't on your "side"), good for you. Given your history, though, including your current absurd, gross misrepresentations of my engagement on SC, I can hardly take your word for it.
Thanks Corph!
The compliment is greatly appreciated. :-)
I actually find these conversations useful (even if they are frustrating at times). We all have different styles of expressing ourselves and I think it is less about one of us being "right" and one of us being "wrong" than about having a different perspective and different priorities.
There are people here where those differences can be frustrating, but that's a good think in a way as it forces me to read my own words as someone who doesn't get to be in my head or agree with my conclusions. Of course, there are others whose perspectives are just downright hideous and I just avoid them.
As I've said, this is quite
As I've said, this is quite simple and clear, has been from the start, and certainly should be after my explanations in response to your apparent confusion in this dialogue. But I'll try another approach, probably my last effort to make clear to you what I'm asserting and to make clear to you the obvious distinctions I'm drawing and the irrelevancy of your (Iatest) argument to my assertion.
What I am talking about is the inconsistency of Krugman's view of the long-term harm/risk associated with a given level of projected long-term fiscal imbalance. So we are talking about Krugman's view of the probability that a given level of projected long-term fiscal imbalance (that of 2003 and that of 2009, respectively) will lead to X level of adverse consequences. If, just to pick a number to establish a starting point for comparison, we assign a probability of 80% chance of X to represent Krugman's 2003 view, and the long-term fiscal imbalance in 2009 is significantly WORSE in every way related to the level of risk of X (with or without the policy Krugman advocates in 2009) we would expect an honest, reasonably objective 2009 Krugman to express a risk of X that is GREATER than 80% (say around 90%), NOT LOWER than 80%, unless he's had some revelation in theinterim regarding the risk of X relateive to a given level of long-term fiscal imbalance, something not indicated by his reference to the 1950s-era history with which he was undoubtedly already very familiar in 2003.
So a representation of honest Krugman views would look something like this (just in directional terms of relative magnitude -- i.e., which figures are larger/smaller than others).
Krugman 2003 says: "OMG! With this policy I oppose, the long-term fiscal imbalance implies an 80% chance of X (level of adverse consequences) !!"
What an honest and reasonably objective Krugman 2009 would say(assuming he was honest and reasonably objective in his 2003 colum): "The long-term fiscal imbalance today is significantly WORSE than in 2003. The chances of X are, therefore, now HIGHER than they were in 2003. If we don't adopt the policy I'm advocating, the risk of X is now 90%."
And in Scenario A he'd add: "This risk would be a bit higher with the policy I advocate (just 91%), but it's worth it to mitigate the short-term suffering (particularly unemployment)"
Or in Scenario B: "This risk will be no greater (it will stay at 90%) if we adopt the policy I advocate, and it will mitigate short-term suffering"
Or in Scenario C: "This policy will mitigate short-term suffering and will actually reduce the risk of X to 89%"
But instead, what does the misleading actual 2009 Krugman say?
Don't worry so much about the policy I advocate possibly increasing the risk of X, because the risk of X would only be around 30% with or without this policy. The people who say the risk is (or would be with this policy) much higher than that 30% are either hysterical or very disingenuous, as is clear from the history of couple of decades immediately following WWII."
Now, again, the question is whether or not there is clear evidence of very substantial inconsistency on Krugman's part regarding the probability of X associated with a given level of projected long-term fiscal imbalance. So is it relevant to that question if Krugman thinks the policy he advocates will have little adverse effect on our long-term fiscal imbalance, or if he thinks it nets out to no effect, or even if he thinks it would have some small* positive effect on our long-term fiscal imbalance and thus on the risk of X, bringing it down from 90% to 89% (* "small" meaning not anywhere near large enough to actually bring the risk of X all the way down to far below what that probability was in 2003)? Of course not. That's obviously a completely separate matter. Krugman 2009 is still implying a probability of X that is much LOWER (despite a WORSE long-term fiscal outlook) than the risk he implied in 2003.
Is this clear now?? Is it possible that you are still contending that there is no such clear inconsistency on Krugman's part? If you are, I'm probably done explaining this to you.
Inconsistency is not a 'point'
This is the assertion/point is getting the response
Few people are truly inconsistent, instead there are other factors which, when taken into account explains what appeared to be inconsistent. You started off by calling him hyper-partisan. When coupled with the inconsistent accusation an implicit assertion that Dr Krugman's inconstant level of expressed concern over the deficit (an inconstancy I acknowledge) is a desire to empower the Democratic party.
I state that there are alternative explanations. Perhaps he is modulating his level of stated emergency (but still feels it) in order to make what he considers to be good economic policy (specific types of deficit spending during major economic troubles) more likely. Or a combination of other factors in the economy has actually lowered what he perceives to be the risk exposure to that particular threat.
In either case, it is highly relevant if Dr Krugman believes the policy he is supporting will have a positivie effect on our economy as it makes the accusation of being a hyperpartisan "first and foremost and a economist second" incorrect.
Although my labeling of
Although my labeling of Krugman as a hyperpartisan is based on much more than just this instance, surely this instance provides an example of gross inconsistency so glaring in its inexplicability outside of the assumption of his dishonesty or extreme bias based on his policy preferences and advocacy that there is indeed very little plausible explanation outside of hyperpartisanship on Krugman's part.
Again, his belief that increased deficits is good policy now and was bad policy then has NOTHING TO DO WITH MY POINT; it has NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS BEING HYPERPARTISAN -- i.e., DISINGENUOUS OR EXTREMELY BIASED IN HIS PRESENTATION OF TRADE-OFFS / CONSEQUENCES. Can't you see the difference between between my representation of what an "honest and reasonably objective Krugman" would say vs. what the "misleading actual Krugman" said?? If someone is being dishonest for what he considers a worthy cause, that doesn't make him any less dishonest, whether or not one considers his dishonesty (his hyperpartisanship) is justified by some moral calculus.
"Modulating"? LOL, "modulating" is such a misleadingly nice-sounding word. No, we are talking about a glaring, gross inconsistency. And again, whether or not his dishonesty is justified doesn't effect his level of dishonesty.
As I've already explained, that theoretically could account for some change in his view, except for the fact that (1) by any measure, from any perspective, our long-term fiscal imbalance and related costs and risks are clearly worse now than in 2003, and (2) the argument he offers is NOT anything of the sort, but rather a supposed lesson from our post-WWII experience, a history with which, as I've said repeatedly, he was undoubtedly already very familiar in 2003.
Wrong. When an economist (particularly a Nobel Prize-winning economist) abuses the credibility many give him on the basis of expertise to present a bogus economics-based argument to mislead people into supporting policies he prefers -- even if he sincerely considers those policies good economics -- than he is a hyperpartisan first and an economist second at least with regard to the arguments he presents. In other words, when choosing between presenting his readers with economics he considers valid or misleading his readers with bogus economics to support policies he favors and considers good economic policy, he chooses the latter, and that makes him a hyperpartisan first, and an economist second. It seems that your point is that as long as he truly believes he is advocating for good economic policies, no degree of dishonesty in his argumentation for such policies would support the assertion that he is a hyperpartisan first and an economist second. I have a very different view.
And all of that is giving him the benefit of the doubt that he actually sincerely believes that the policies he favors would be good economics in the conventional sense of macroeconomic performance over time, leaving aside the possibility that he actually believes that they are good policy because they redistribute income and/or mitigate short-term suffering at the expense of overall, long-term macroeconomic performance.
[edit: I should note that you seem to assume a particular definition of "hyperpartisan" that is narrower than mine. You keep saying that I'm calling Krugman a hyperpartisan on behalf of Democrats, and you seem to think I'm saying that, to fit that label, Krugman would have to be advocating policies he considered bad economics (from whatever perspective) simply to support the Democratic Party. That's not what I'm saying, and my definition of "hyperpartisanship" is not that narrow. As I use the term, one can be a "hyperpartisan" on behalf of a party, an ideology, a candidate/politician, or even a policy. The distinguishing characteristic is extreme bias and/or insincerity in argumentation, as opposed to speaking and engaging in good faith (honestly and making a reasonable effort at objectivity and thoughtfulness). For a fuller definition, see my comment at theforvm.org/diary/bird-dog/partisanship-perceptions-and-resistance-facts-updated#comment-161930
which is my response to a question as to what I meant by "hyperpartisan" and how it's different than "partisan".] [Edit #2: I see upthread that I already provided that link to you much earlier in this exchange]
Hmmmmm...
This:
"The modern Republican Party has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old"
is just like YOU, missliberties.
People who come up with such
characterizations about political parties and groups...like in that comment...usually deserve a good look themselves.Krugman is quite the character to making those statements.
Hey John!
Drop by more often...PLEASE! ;-)
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
It is to me.
Well, maybe one or two weren`t. But BR is depressingly repetitive, not to mention insulting. Kind of hard to ignore too, unfortunately. It`s almost as if he were degrading the quality of the site...
Geez, "hard to ignore" a guy
Geez, "hard to ignore" a guy who pretty much stopped participating months ago after it became clear that you, ML, GR and Centinel (the latter two possibly one) had ruined the site and that there was no will among others to change course? I'm just on this thread because it relates to the small hope I still hold that SC may take corrective action. If not, or at least in the meantime, you, ML, GR and Centinel have this greatly diminished site largely to yourselves (with a couple of others who have stuck around). For you to complain about my presence on this thread is pathetic.
I appreciate your non-participation.
Now go away, again.
Unfortunately for you, I'm
Unfortunately for you, I'm not yet ready to completely give up trying to get SC back to its former quality (and from there, higher volume), so on threads such as this one, I'll probably keep trying. But I probably won't bother trying to have a quality discussion on threads that aren't related to that possible effort*, so you can feel free to have garbage exchanges with ML, GR, Centinel and the couple of other remaining regulars (and "regulars" is a stretch even for them, given the extremely low volume of comments and diaries). You guys pretty much have this place to yourselves at this point. You few individuals have turned an oasis into a junkyard (or perhaps I should say desert), and if nothing changes, it's all yours to enjoy (or not, since it seems darn close to dead at this point, thanks to you guys).
* other than resuming a prior discussion with knocienz, who is the kind of quality participant I don't think is likely to come back to SC on a regular basis as long as it continues to be dominated by commenters of bad faith and low intellect.
The stimulus
The $800B stimulus was forced spending caused by Bush policies. The economic consensus was something like no stimulus = Great Depression II. The most you can blame Obama for is insufficient vigilence with executive bonuses and attaching too few regulatory strings.
Missile defense is a stupid boondoggle no matter what the Russians think about it. It doesn't work and it's a waste of money. There is no possible way such a shield could be cost-effective against an enemy who simply launches more or more clustered missiles. Clinton scrapped it; Bush revived it to look tough and please defense contractors. Now Obama has re-semi-scrapped it, in full triangulating fashion. It`s worse than nothing, but a hell of a lot better than what Bush wanted.
We had been marking time in Afganistan for several years, and started losing ground in 2008.
See, I know pundits and probably the voting public's memory of Bush's incompetence will fade and Obama will start getting blamed. It's still actually almost all Bush's fault. You can't decimate manufacturing, start 2 wars, let Wall Street indulge its worst instincts, cut taxes on the rich and expect things to sort themselves out right away simply because you left office. Both economically and militarily, we are permanently weakened.
Sick of politics
It's not just the red bars that have that sentiment!
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
Sure, as a qualifier just ban whomever BR doesn't like...
...or called him on his BS.
That should solve everything.
Oh, wait a minute, you forgot to mention, but clearly "rationalized" your own affliction with diahrea of the mouth back then, so I guess in addition to those you don't care for, in accordance with your remedy you would have to ban yourself.
Now that just may solve something.... ;-)
...oh, just a footnote, GR and I are not the same people...
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Ah there you are
Admit it, you missed being called hyperpartisan, irrational and unintelligent.
I don't get all the sockpuppet allegations either. You all have very different posting styles.
Hey there...
LOL!
I know, but I surprised to see you on that list, you're usually pretty solid, in a quirky liberal sort of way... ;-)
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Critical mass
Well it's just lack of critical mass right? I'm not sure how changing the site name or format would change that.
As for me, I find myself less interested in the day-to-day political debate these days. The political process is obscenely broken. Patri Friedman
has said plenty on this. As has Peter Thiel 
. I can't change the system, so the best I can do is to optimize for my own goals within the system that exists. I'll probably continue voting, and almost certainly for Republican candidates, but with little enthusiasm, and if I forget to vote in some particular year, ehhh, whatever.
Moving away from politics, I'm still really interested in economics and other, broader social issues. I'm much more interested in what Arnold Kling and Tyler Cowen have to say than by what politicians have to say. In more recent times, since I originally stopped posting here, I've also gotten sucked into the "Game"/HBD blogs (roissy, Steve Sailer, Ferdinand Bardamu, etc.).
Before, I'd say I held fairly mainstream centrist-to-conservative-ish views on social issues -- leaning to the right, but not very far, and as an atheist certainly opposed to policies with an explicitly religious bent. My views on economic issues were pretty solid far-right/libertarian: not exactly mainstream, but fairly run-of-the-mill libertarianism.
Now I think that on both social issues and economic issues, my views have shifted to be just plain enigmatic: so far outside the mainstream that just about anyone, no matter centrist, far left, or far right, would throw up their hands in defeat and wonder what in the heck is wrong with me. No matter who you are, I probably have at least several beliefs that will seriously piss you off. :) I bet you won't find anyone on this site other than me who wants to take the right to vote away from women, for example. And that's not even my most controversial idea about voting!
At the same time, I see more and more folks popping up in the Game/HBD sphere who seem to be thinking a lot of the same things I'm thinking; and now that Democrats are solidly in control of all branches of government and Republicans have proved several times now that they can't be trusted to cut government, there seem to be more folks in the conservative/libertarian camps thinking about democracy as being part of the problem, rather than being part of the solution.
If economics is the original dismal science, genetics/evopsych is the new dismal science. When you combine the two, you get pure evil. Thus, me. :)
I can see where you are coming from
I've gotten a bit too cynical to approach politics in a standard way - within the usual liberal vs conservative confines.
The problem is we have to be realistic with what will happen in this country, regardless of how jaded we might be with the process.
However I can think of a particular forum that would accomodate the more diverse pool of ideas :)
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I shar many of LZ's views on this matter
I too have become very disinterested in the day to day grind of politics. I've had better things to do. My libertarian filter makes politics seem more and like when I happen upon an episode of Jerry Springer or some bitchy low-grade reality show. Lame, lame, lame.
I find that my energy spent outside of my family is best spent on sports and video games, cars and home improvement. It changes "the country" as much my political involvement does: NOT AT ALL.
Going to Phillies games to cheer on my defending champs, watching the Eagles make another go and following European Soccer is far more appealing. I have a daughter now as well which comes with a lot of activity by itself. And I just moved to into my new house.
And yes, like LZ, on those boring days that I glance at my google reader, I tend to find the writings of people like Kling, Cowen and others like Will Wilkinson and Julian Sanchez and yet others in the intellectual/academic libertarian/economics realm far more interesting and honest. I'll even glance through certain liberals' blogs on occasion...especially when linked. I rarely comment. I just read. And even that is only a few times per month.
I can certainly understand the disenchantement with "democracy" that LZ describes. Overrated. Just leave me alone.
I have no passion for politics or polemics. I never really did. Philosophy, history and economics and social issues are more interesting but still amount to very little beyond excerising my brain.
I'll continue to vote (mainly Libertarian to spite the establishment and whatever party's candidates on a local level suit my fancy)...though that doesn't take very much. Any shmo can do that. it's just a drop in the ocean.
See you around. I'll pop in and keep myself posted from time to time.
Hi John. While I wouldn't
Hi John.
While I wouldn't suggest that blogging on politics/policy is necessarily worth anyone's time, my guess is that the low value you attach to it these days is at least partly a function of the quality of discussion/debate -- too much hurling back and forth of predictable, knee-jerk, hyperpartisan talking points and not much real discussion/debate in which people actually listen to one another's arguments, actually consider them, and respond directly, substantively, rationally and in good faith, which would be far more interesting and informative. Am I right that that's at least part of it? If SC could get away from the crap from the aforementioned problem individuals that inundated SC and ruined it, and if SC could get back to high quality discourse, including bringing back some good lapsed commenters and adding some new ones, with a decent level of comment frequency and volume (and thus interaction), would that interest you more and attract more participation from you?
Same question to others.
Intelligent discussion
You could have an intelligent discussion between a smart advocate of, say, single-payer health care vs. a smart advocate of market-based health care. I'd find that more interesting than the typical political debate. But, I'd guess that on a site like this, I wouldn't read any new ideas -- I'd only read rehashes of ideas I had already heard elsewhere. The people coming up with truly new ideas aren't posting on a site like this one.
Worse still, any new, radical idea (no matter whether it's good or bad) is incredibly unlikely to get a fair hearing in our political arena. Any threatened established interests will jump on it. Demagogue politicians will attack it with absurd rhetoric and scare tactics.
That's why, these days, I'm so focused on what Arnold Kling calls "exit, not voice." The #1 thing that all conservatives/libertarians need to do, before they do a single ounce of political activism, is *move to low-tax states*. I think it's appalling that I have friends back in California who hate taxes and who are still living there paying those ~10% taxes on their (fairly substantial) income. They don't even have to move to Texas like me -- they could set up their residence in Nevada, just a few hours drive an a 1-hour flight from the Bay Area, if they preferred. Incline Village is well-known as a destination for CA tax refugees.
In terms of specific policies, conservatives/libertarians need to start opposing *all* policies that centralize *any* further power in Washington, *no matter how well-intentioned those policies are*. We're already past the tipping point where the federal government is significantly more important than the state governments. DC is the new Rome: the imperial capital, where the politicians, who would be gods, govern us mere mortals out in the "provinces."
Now I don't think a renewal of federalism is going to happen. In the short term, the Democrats seem quite content to increase federal taxes, spending, and regulation; the only fight is over by how much. The long-term picture is bleak if Hispanics and/or unmarried women don't start voting for small government all of the sudden; the conservative movement will soon be unable to win elections just with white men and married white women. In the meantime, our culture is in horrible disrepair. Thus, the next logical step becomes expatriation. Get out of this country before it gets worse.
Why fight to improve the government when (1) your efforts are futile and (2) you think you're going to leave the country anyway?
I'd rather talk about better systems than better policies. Tactics-wise, I'd rather talk about how to achieve better systems than about how to achieve better policies; after all, the answer to the latter is obvious ("better politicians will not result in significantly better policies; only better systems will result in significantly better policies"). Unfortunately, talking about what's wrong with the system can also rapidly turn into tilting against windmills, unless there's some plausible plan for how to achieve a better system. That's why I'm so excited about seasteading -- because now there's a plan for how to achieve a better society that might actually *work* within my lifetime!
I'd also rather talk about the culture than about most of the specific political issues of the day.
Was
this
not intelligent enough for you, or did you miss it because you were away?
Yes, the basic arguments don't change much, but there are always new angles to look at. I had hoped more people would want to jump into the fray.
avoiding endless skirmishes
Hi guys,
Like many others, I've been caught up in outside obligations so I haven't been participating much. When I have checked in, I noticed that there vasn't mech activity, so I checked out the Forvm. I figured that the core problem was one of scale and that the tide had turned in favor of the forvm.
As said above, I did get tired of contant partisan skirmishing..often with a few commenters making a large number of antagonistic comments with little intellectual value. I don't know how to solve this problem, but I don't think that bans are the way to do it..if only because of the burden it would place on moderators. I think that the structure of the site would have to naturally discourage this -- perhaps some sort of commennt quota.
Good luck.
In my expert opinion, you should do what I tell you to do.
With at most a couple of
With at most a couple of exceptions, the participants at Forvm are not seeking good-faith, truly mutually responsive discussion/debate, but rather just a hyperpartisan food fight, even if some manage enough eloquence and sophistication to create some initial pretense that they are actually interested in such real discussion/debate. I participated for months there and found almost no one willing to engage in good faith when presented with a significant challenge to their arguments. Apparently they are too insecure on a personal and/or partisan level to engage in good faith if they sense some threat to the positions, assumptions and arguments they are determined to maintain unaltered in the slightest.
After one attempt after another to get people to make a reasonable effort to simply answer a clear, direct question or respond directly to some argument I presented, and instead consistently encountering nothing but persistent evasive tactics such as straw men, absurd hyperbole, gross, obvious mischaracterization of my questions and arguments, etc., I started calling people on the obvious evasiveness and bad faith, and they suspended/banned me.
I (and I think many others) would prefer a blog on which participants engage in good faith despite -- or perhaps because -- that would mean sometimes acknowledging flaws in one's own assumptions or reasoning (etc.) or strengths in opposing positions/arguments, and perhaps modifying one's own positions accordingly. That will rarely, if ever, happen with those folks on Forvm. I think it happened to some extent on the "old SC" in what I consider the "good old days". And we could get that quality, good-faith discussion/debate back and build from there on the volume dimension.
I should add, lest anyone
I should add, lest anyone think my comments about Forvm are colored by my having been suspended/banned (which would be putting the cart before the horse), early on in my experence on Forvm I saw the nature of "debate" there for what it was, which was inferior in terms of good-faith discussion/debate on SC at the time, and I urged SCers not to further entertain the idea some had of possibly merging SC with Forvm in some way, since that would have brought down SC's quality at that time, ruining it's preferable nature for those of us who were mature, secure and honest enough to engage in good faith discussion/debate even if it meant having to actually deal directly with legitimate, tough challenges to our views.
And later, in my "Best of 2008" diary I posted both on SC and at Forvm, I wrote:
Best Previously Existing Blog: www.SwordsCrossed.org
The only politics blog I know of that provides (to a large extent) an escape from almost completely mindless hyperpartisanship. Sure, the volume (diaries and comments) is not great (hint, hint: guys, let’s talk marketing in 2009), and Forvm (the other community blog I know of that is not, by design at least, focused on one side or the other of the political/ideological spectrum) has greater volume, Forvm is comprised mostly of knee-jerk, committed hyperpartisans (I’d guess about 80% on the left, 20% on the right) with whom it’s quite difficult to have a real, good-faith, mutually-responsive, substantive, logical discussion/debate. We have a couple of individuals here on SC who are like that, but most are not.
http://swordscrossed.org/diary/20081223/best-2008-ymmv
Hmmm.
This appears to be a common problem for you. Perhaps it is time to consider the possibility that the cause of this malady lies somewhere other than where you think? Hint: Look a little closer to home.
I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4Playing "Endless Skirmishes?"
Rome wasn't built in a day
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
No. It sure wasnt.
But it destroyed over a few centuries of a bad government and emperors' hubris.
What do you want from it?
Can't say I've been contibuting much lately. Been elsewhere. Other sites, mostly not on a computer though. House modifications and life are filling my dance card.
Got bored. Knowing most of you I can't see the site changing from something much different than what it is. Maybe some mix of The Forvum, Obsidian Wings or some other such discussion site. Discussion sites don't get the traffic or the recognition as the more aggressive and more forward sites. Those sites aren't meant to inform, to question or to evaluate & compare. They are meant to build up specific points of view & trash those who don't agree.
Sadly an awful lot of folk out there like to hear the crowd reinforcing their beliefs. It makes them feel better, more potent. Equally sadly both extremes like to whip up their side's people. Alarmed, angry and scared people are easier to direct because they don't question so much. They don't use reason at that point, they go on gut and then you make stupid decisions.
So what to do here? I'd say use several of the good things about other sites and bring them together in your own way. Or whomever has the posting priveleges.
What do you all think of the Repub game plan in DC?
To me, it's pretty clear that the conservatives as a whole (that includes Democrats) want to 1) obfuscate by parroting the worst lines from Rush, Beck and all, 2) delay...at all costs because they think 3) they can make Democrats suffer the death of 1,000 cuts and 4) win in 2010 by saying the Democrats haven't accomplished a thing and wooo boy, did you hear those nasty things folks are saying about them?
The outright lies I can deal with. Bush43 did 'em & the party played right along. I assumed they'd continue cause that's the one biggie they got in their bag. In my mind, I wish they could be ignored. They can't of course, that media insists on treating the worst of 'em like they were their meal ticket, which sadly they probably ar if you are a media empire that wan't to emulate The Enquiror's/Fox's business model.
I think Marcos was right yesterday when he said Democrats should be concentrating their debate on Blue Dog Democrats as they are the real ones who can stop progress. They should pressure them by directly calling them out, by running ads, by twisting their legislative arms.
Honestly all of what's gone down so far tells me that it's gonna come back to bite the Blue Dogs in the ass. I say that because most of them are from borderline districts and are the ones most likely to be booted in 2010 by their unhappy constituents. Dumb sh**s. I can't see how they don't see it.
Have you seen the Ballon Juice Lexicon?
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?page_id=27077
It's hilarious. Give it a go.
Well worth a bookmark!
nt
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
Greenspan Advocates for Pro-Consumer Watchdog
Holy Cow Batman! Greenspan throws Ayn Rand under the bus!
I admire a man who can reflect honestly on his own legacy and reassess his thinking.
Greenspan who has been a forceful advocate for markets regulating themselves has admited his thinking was flawed.
"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,"
" He said the administration's plan to create a consumer protection agency was "probably the right decision."
The real fight to create a Consumer Protection Agency is yet to come. I hope Greenspan uses his clout, or what's left of it, to influence folks in high places, that nothing will happen in the economy or job recovery, until Wall Street stops throwing the little guy under the bus.
I'm only half stupid
Greenspan must have been around
for the Savings & Loan debacles in the `80s. He has no excuse for "discovering" this flaw in his philosophy only now.
He's at best a mealy-mouthed idealogue, at worst a partisan hack.
Greenspan's Redemption Call
I don't think anything could have stopped the freight train, that started in the '80's under Greenspan's (and others) ideology, except a wake up call, like we saw last Sept., when the world financial system literally froze.
If Greenspan can persuade his fans on Wall Street that a Consumer Protection Agency is necessary, if the events of the past year have brought him 'see the light, then I would be happy to welcome his lobbying for some restraints on unregulated capitalism. Protecting the consumer will protect his ' precious baby' the market. Right now we don't really have one.
(It was a year ago today that 'the market' dropped 700 and some points.)
I'm only half stupid
You're more forgiving
than I. There may be no zealot like a convert, but I'm not sure Greenspan's even converted. Even if he has, I would prefer an advocate who showed better judgment throughout his career.
I don't believe advocating for restraints on unregulated capitalism would work. I believe the whole artificial hedge-fund, derivitive, overleaveraged mess should be largely dismantled. Then we should scrap terms like "financial products" and "innovation". Banking needs to go back to be the boring, simple business of allocating capital to maximum effect.
Yeah....
well, I am only forgiving on certain days.
Changing the mindset that is entrenched at Wall Street, is like trying to row the Titanic with a toothpick. So if the architect of lassiez-faire says a little regulation is okay, I am jumping all over it.
Irksome that Greenspan and his cohorts still have their DNA set, that 'the economy' is the stock market. The rest of us hard working folks are just bothersome peasants. ;)
I'm only half stupid
Naked Shorts & Tea Baggers
$$$$$$$$$$
Just imagine if you could make money selling stocks you never owned, and never sold. That is the malignancy of naked shorts, or short selling.
Why aren't the howling pack of tea baggers screaming outside the illustrious offices of Goldman Sachs?
It would be a more constructive and appropriate avenue for their frustrations.
They could carry around pictures of bankers and Wall Street investors with filled in Hitler moustaches and scream fascism at the financial Wall Street gurus that bankrupted the economy. Take it to the source.
I'm only half stupid
Their motives aren't consistent.
Their taxes haven't gone up. Most of them can't even name a spending item other than bank bailouts that they object to. I won't even get in to what they might mean by "I want my country back!". Who or what exactly took their country away, and who let them have the sole authority to define their country's essence.
I can only find two coherent lines of thinking behind what the teabaggers are doing:
1. Oppose anything a Democratic president wants, and do it the way the Republican/corporate PR people tell you to.
2. Latch onto anything you think could be objectionable because you don't like the idea of a black President.
They are just ordinary people
in my view, who are easily manipulated with this type of populist rhetoric because they are scared.
They are essentially supporting a revivalist movement of the John Birch Society.
I'm only half stupid
Reading my local paper's 'Letters to the Editor'
sometimes put's me over the edge. My paper has a pattern. They'll print a few letters about recent articles or events. But they always pick the most extreme & crazed ones they get. I guess it sells papers. Honestly it's the same thing (just about) with the MSM. But it got me to thinking. I have no desire to censor anyone else's howling at the moon blather, but it would sure be nice if the editors follow it with corrections of all the factual discrepancies the previous article/letter had. Just correct the outright lies so that those readers/viewers that aren't well informed don't go away thinking that the segment was remotely true.
Example: Let a letter writer or article suggest that President Obama is a muslim, isn't a citizen, etc. Put a line after it allowing the opinions but saying that factually Obama was born in the US/ is a christian/ is a US citizen. Same thing with the health care debate. Allow folks to say that the plan would force citizens to take the Public Option over the plan they currently have & place a note afterwards stating that none of the plans before congress require anyone to change.
I'm not talking opinions. opinions aren't fixed and can vary. That happens. I'm talking actual facts. Stop allowing folks to state blatent lies and just pass it off as 'well it may be true because so & so says it is' kind of stuff. Even if the bulk of Americans prefer to be mindless doesn't mean we should stoop to that level in our every day discourse. We're better than that.
Senator Harkin says that when the Senate & House merge
What ever healthcare bill that comes up, the committee puting the bills together won't contain any Republicans:
blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2009/10/01/harkin-sees-no-gop-at-senate-bill-table/
"Asked whether Republicans would be at the table when Harkin’s comittee’s bill is merged with legislation pending in the Senate Finance Committee, Harkin said no.
'No, this will be a proposal by the Democrats to bring a bill on the floor.'"
Now I didn't like that when bush43 was running the show. The Republican Leadership from the House & Senate routinely cut all Democrats out of the conference comittees that merged bills. I thought it wasn't right. I still don't. I think the conference comittee should have a few Republicans in them. Let them vote no on everything. Show America that they are corporate whores & don't care about their constituents. But whatever the Leadership does, I don't want to see them name one blue dog democrat to that comittee. Nothin' for them. Let 'em cry with the other prostitutes.
Redstate's Eric Ericson is a city council member in Macon GA
& the cops there are organizing to form a union. Eric says if they do he's going to push fire the entire 130 cops and contract out police work to the local Sheriffs office:www.sadlyno.com/archives/25626.html
It is too funny....here's a law & order guy and he wants to fire all the cops cause they want a better package. WTF?!?
Check out his hatemail posts.
I though the whole point of posting hate mail was to mock the haters. I`m not sure Erick realizes that outside his bubble of sycophants, he's the one who comes off looking like an idiot.
So Georgia law doesn't allow for unions to be a part of
collective bargaining? Kind of defeats the purpose of a Union, doesn't it? Why isn't there a similar law on the books keeping Corporate interests in line similarly? Because the companies have the dollars to fill campaign accounts. Legalized bribery, all in the name of democracy.
I think it was about bad faith (and the appearance of it)
I just popped back for the first time in many moons to see what's up and see this.
In my case, it was that the site hit a critical mass of folks who didn't have good faith discussions. People made spurious arguments that they did not actually believe in order to disrupt other people's conversation. (Not to be confused with playing devil's advocate where you are directly and honestly pointing to what you consider to be weaknesses in someone else's statement)
That quickly led to a new critical mass in people who would (at least appear to) assume bad faith in others if they simply didn't express themselves perfectly (i.e. an imperfect or incomplete phrasing being altered during the course of a thread would not be viewed as an evolving phrasing of a high level concept but as someone simply changing their belief)
This created a lot of noise and not a whole of signal. That then led to a fairly massive increase in rhetorical bomb throwing as the only way get heard. Basically, rather than clarity, it was just tiring to try to have a conversation (which given my work load at the time, wasn't really worth the effort)
My 2 cents anyways.
Welcome back.
When I first started over here, I thought the idea was going to be unvarnished discussion.
I think for me it became repeated talking points. By themselves you can deal with that, it's expected in political discussions between folks who don't agree. But when one came to realize that there was no exchange of ideas on any level, for all practicle purposes, the 'debate' becomes more an exercise rather than a conversation. Well, that plus the bomb throwing.
On the plus side, I'm much less a bomb thrower now than when I first came over. Flame wars just don't have as much appeal as they used to.
Who here remembers flame.alt on the 'old' internet?
Hey man! (I don't recall if
Hey man! (I don't recall if I know for a fact that you're a guy or if I'm just presuming it for some reason. If I'm wrong, apologies for the presumption).
You were one of the best SC regulars. Coincidentally, I was discussing the abortion issue with someone earlier today and I revisited that old, excellent dialogue we had (great thread overall, if memory serves), which I've always meant to get back to (I dropped the ball). Anyway, just now I posted a comment on that thread to which I hope you'll respond -- http://swordscrossed.org/node/1736#comment-113192
Not sure if that link to
Not sure if that link to comment worked, so I'll post again.
swordscrossed.org/node/1736#comment-113192
That was a great thread
Notice the variety of participants. And I still think Pico's explanation of the limits of logic and rationality in the comments is outstanding. Maybe you wouldn't get so frustrated by those around you if you understood that what appears to be wholly scientific and rational to you does not necessarily appear so to others. Bottom line in that regard, however, IMHO, is that people are more willing to participate if they have some chance of having their ideas heard, no matter how poorly they may phrase a particular comment.
I'm interested in hearing Ender's ideas for format changes here. Maybe a slightly different framework would be beneficial.
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein
I think that thread worked
Because it was, at its heart, an exploration of peoples axioms and logical methods. That is, it wasn't about someone's basic beliefs being right or wrong, but requiring people to acknowledge that something was a basic belief or expound on the logic that got them from a basic belief (and what that belief was) to their conclusion.
The thread was about internal consistency instead of arbitrary correctness as judged by others.
Good point. And I think our
Good point. And I think our [America's] political discourse needs a lot more of that (essentially, the Socratic Method), and people need to better distinguish between value judgments vs. such an exploration of premises and logic (and the validity of each), as well as trade-offs. Too often in political discourse (and increasingly so, unfortunately) people just crudely throw together all of the above in a way that defies examination and rational, thoughtful discussion/debate, and any efforts at making appropriate distinctions, questioning premises, posing hypothetical questions to test internal consistency and explore/refine principles, etc. are met only with hostile hyperbole, straw men, and general evasiveness, whether due to hyperpartisanship, the personal insecurity of individuals afraid of having some flaw in their argument exposed, or both.
[edit below]
To illustrate, my point above, the quality discussion that we had on that thread would not have been possible if all/most of the responses had been like the following:
swordscrossed.org/node/1736#comment-74587
swordscrossed.org/node/1736#comment-74600
swordscrossed.org/node/1736#comment-74642
I'm rereading the thread
When I have occasional free minutes. But will try to answer later today
cool
cool
What about a local focus?
Rather than focussing on following the day to day politics on the national scene focus on local politics- how to get involved, who does what, general principles.
Might be a terrible idea since zoning board meetings aren't exactly sexy, but it'd be political without the unchanging tedium of teh national scene.
I bring it up beause I'm looking at joining my city's citizen advisory committee for transportation issues, and depending on how that goes perhaps getting more involved in local politics. I'm also a foster parent and so have had some significant contact with DHS (they run children's services here).
*shrug*
I came. I saw. I posted.
Veni, Vidi, Bitchy.
I'd join a thread
about urban sprawl, public transit and such. Local issues can have much wider implications.
It would be more interesting than the cable news outrage of the day silly back-and-forth.
That's awesome tlaloc
I hope you join up. Folks can make a huge difference at the local level. Transportation will be trendy soon. My state is doing light rail, but the ins and outs of building it, where to build it, the money to build it are all a bit messy. And the original intent of eminent domain comes into play. The trick is to find a route that is least intrusive on private property. Our light rail will follow some old train tracks. The Emergency Recovery Act is working on improving the roads, building sidewalks, etc. to revitalize one of the longest roads, Colfax Ave. With the economy as it is, it is slow going, but eventually the rail will connect with our airport. It should do a lot to ease traffic congestion, and all the other good stuff that goes along with public transportation.
Good for you.
I'm only half stupid
much more productive use of time,
I agree. Though I don't know that is makes for captivating blogging for others in far away parts of the country. But still but a better way to make a difference.
Socialist
Some socialist made a bunch of spam threads.
In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,
Yes, I know
Mentioned it here
http://www.swordscrossed.org/diary/20100119/ma-chooses-brown#comment-113872
"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." --R. Heinlein