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Samizdata quote of the day “A pragmatist doesn’t keep pressing the same garage door button when the garage door doesn’t open. He gets out of the car and tries to identify what’s wrong.”
– Michael Barone. The veteran chronicler of US politics is not given to harsh language, but he’s certainly not pulling his punches today.
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A good article.
To use one of the same politicians favourite analogies, he puts the car in (D) and drives on through.
Disagree.
I thought it was a stupid article. He accuses Obama of misrepresenting Republicans with the claim that they want to “simply cut most government spending and eliminate most government regulations” – and he’s exactly right.
Barone is trying to attack Obama through validating the Left’s own Big Government premises. The whole piece was therefore little more than a glorified ad hominem.
The way to attack Obama is to do so by attacking his BG premises, not validating them.
The Republicans are cutting spending?
[insert long pause for people to stop laughing and collect themselves]
That is pretty much how I see it as well. The Republicans are part of the problem rather than the solution. Will the Tea Party change that? We will see soon enough but I grow more sceptical by the day.
I don’t see it that way at all. Or are we now going to argue that any sustained criticism of The One is “ad hominem”?
From Barone’s article:
By defending the Republicans against this charge of Obama’s that they want to cut “most” spending and regulations, Barone is basically admitting that such an aim is in some sense or another… bad. That being the case, he is embracing the idea that “most” government spending and regulations ought not to be cut.
If what he would rather embrace was a subtler claim about the manner in which such spending and regulation ought to be cut, then he should have wrote something to that effect. He didn’t.
“Or are we now going to argue that any sustained criticism of The One is “ad hominem”?”
Of course not. But attacking Obama’s policies whilst embracing the BG premise on which those policies are based is both weak and unnecessary (though perhaps “glorified ad hominem” was a bit strong).
Or are we now going to argue that any sustained criticism of premises makes you a dangerous fringe lunatic?
Barone could have criticized Obama without validating the BG premise. Why didn’t he do that? My guess is that, like certain other people, he is afraid for his reputation in polite society.
The correct reply to “you want to cut 50% of the protections the welfare state gives people” should be, “Well no, I intend to cut them all, but in the short term 50% will do for now”…
To do otherwise is to fight your battles on ground of the enemy’s choosing and doom yourself to being perpetually on the defensive. The *only* meaningful fight is for or against the regulatory welfare state itself, because to quibble over how big it should be other than within the context of how it should be best dismantled is to concede it should exist at all.
“To do otherwise is to fight your battles on ground of the enemy’s choosing and doom yourself to being perpetually on the defensive. The *only* meaningful fight is for or against the regulatory welfare state itself…”
Agreed.
Attacking the BG premise itself does not mean you thereby have to doom yourself to association with conspiracy wackos and tired, wobbly old Ron Paul types.
“Will the Tea Party change that” asks Perry.
Well there are many “Tea Party” groups (and alliances of groups) of course.
A weakness – and a strength.
Several years of propaganda (not just on news and current affairs shows – but also on entertainment shows) have undermined “the Tea Party” in the eyes of most voters.
If people scream “you are crazy and you are racist” at you all day long – other people (who do not want to seem either crazy or racist will edge away from you – even if you are neither of these things).
Why is the American media (mostly) so leftwing – well I could go into a long comment about the statism of the education system.
Or I could simply say that back when Jack Kennedy was President a FCC administrator decided to change the rules for the production of fiction shows.
In the 1950s companies could decide on the CONTENT of the entertainment shows they sponsored.
Under the new rules content was up to the networks.
This was done in the name of “creative freedom”.
In reality it meant (of course) that instead of having to find one company (out of hundreds or even thousands) that might like your idea for a show enough to pay for it (and have its name connected with your show).
You instead had to please one of three groups – ABC, CBS or NBC.
If the left had NOT taken over a system in which there were only three players….. well they would not be the left.
So OF COURSE when there is a really evil person on an American fiction show – he (or she) turns out to be a Tea Party supporter (or whatever). Most likely out to bomb an abortion clinic – or out to kill the local most saintly person (because they are black) whilst calling out “Glenn Beck made me do it…..”
Certainly most people do not take the media (“news” or “entertainment”) line as the literal truth.
But they are influenced by it – the “drip, drip effect” well known about for propaganda.
HOWEVER…..
Attacking people does not automatically discredit their ideas….
If a candidate gets nominated who really does want to reduce government spending I predict that such a candidate will get elected.
Yes I am saying they would win.
Even negative me believes that.
Of course if a candidate gets nominated who goes into a meltdown whenever the truth (such as admitting that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme) gets mentioned…..
Well then I am with Perry.
IIRC Ron Paul ducked the “welfare state is a Ponzi scheme” question at the recent stand-up.
That is strange Tim.
Still courage has a price. Rick Perry has been harshly attacked by various people (Karl Rove and the other usual suspects). And this is just is just on Fox News – on which most (although not all) people lean towards Romney.
The pro Obama stations have most likely been saying that Rick Perry eats babies (and showing fake film to “prove” it).
Whilst Ron Paul just says “stop the wars” and “bring the troops home” and “end the warfare state” (and so on) the left will not really hit him.
But (and he knows this) as soon as he turns his fire on the Welfare State the left will come after him.
And in the ways they know best.
No sane man would WANT what the left does to people. The endless charges of racism, the attacks on one’s family (and on and on).
Rick Perry reasoned he might survive it (and become President) – but he may have underestimated the attacks from fellow Republicans.