This is the problem with Conservative intellectual bankruptcy--it's just a self-serving story for their wealthy patrons, with no connection to reality. This is why, when you implement their policies, they don't work as advertised.

For God's sake, I used Grover's favorite stat to prove that gay marriage caused more economic growth than TABOR did. So, I'm sorry, if Grover wants to make the argument that lowering taxes on the wealthy and starving investment causes growth, he also has to argue that gay marriage causes even MORE growth.

What Grover's pushing aren't economic theories. They're sales tactics.

Posted at September 21, 2007 5:49 AM in response to Grover, Grover, Grover

This is just stupid. Taxes overall are so low that they don't inhibit growth--the only question is whether taxes are high enough on the wealthy to support the investments in people and infrastructure that are necessary to sustainable growth.

For God's sake, look at the economic growth of Taxachusetts using Grover's preferred stat. From TABOR time until the latest data ('97-'06), when Colorado had a 45.9% increase in personal income per capita, Taxachusetts had a 50.4% increase.

And, Taxachusetts started off with a higher base income. So, while the people in Colorado went from 26 grand to just under 39 grand, the people of Massachusetts went from 30 grand to over 45 grand! More growth no matter how you look at it.

Hey, maybe gay marriage causes economic growth! New Jersey, home of civil unions, had personal income growth of 44.5% (from $32k to over $46k), and Vermont, which also had civil unions, grew 48.9% (from $23k to $34k).

I've just proved this point BETTER than Grover proved his "lower taxes on the wealthy and you'll magically generate growth" one.

http://www.nylovesbiz.com/nysdc/Personalincome/stpcpi9706.pdf

Posted at September 20, 2007 3:53 PM in response to The Case of Colorado

The word "bureaucracy" has become hopelessly tarnished. Best to let it refer to the BS done in Bushworld, where one creates systems that ensure one can break rules without any accountability. Where deniability (not even plausible deniability) is always ensured.

We need a good word for what you're referring to. I suggest:

Protocol
Checks and balances
Regulation
Order
Fair-standard (lol, how about fair-ity standard)

Posted at April 25, 2007 4:14 PM in response to The Case for Bureaucracy

From MSNBC...

Jamal Albarghouti, a graduate student, said that instead of fleeing, he began shooting video footage on his cell phone.

“I’m from the Middle East, so I’m not used to this sort of thing, but I’ve been in similar situations,” Albarghouti told MSNBC-TV.

Posted at April 16, 2007 6:35 PM in response to Now Do You Understand?

And then there's also the fact that this is the guy who thought it was a great idea to move the city's emergency response bunker--his anti-terrorist headquarters during an attack--in the 23rd floor of not just any skyscraper, but in a skyscraper that had already been attacked by terrorists.

If he becomes president, he'll probably move NORAD into the attic of the White House. He'll move our National Hurricane Response Center into New Orleans's 9th Ward. He'll move our national earthquake response center into a rickety old building in the center of San Francisco. Wildfire response center? In the middle of a forest. Flood response center? On the banks of the Mississippi.

The guy's core competency is PR stunts, okay? It's certainly not planning, building, or anything involving real leadership as opposed to simply posturing for the cameras.

Posted at March 8, 2007 4:07 PM in response to Why Rudy Giuliani Really Shouldn’t be President

For some reason, I'm moved to say "YOU MUST CHILL! I HAVE HIDDEN YOUR KEYS!"

Listen, I get how frustrating it would be to hear people talk and be wrong about an era and a movement you lived through. Point taken, and I for one would be THRILLED if nobody ever mentioned the damn 60's again.

To address some of these points, it's not intellectually bankrupt. I've learned more about left-leaning economics since I started reading the blogs than before. They're called links, and they're good.

And it's a little ludicrous to declare the netroots bankrupt when it hasn't completely shaken out itself or its influence yet--the internet is only 10 years old, and using it for political organizing is only a few years old. But frankly, it's managed to move an unknown Vermont Governor to the head of the Democratic party, which isn't exactly insignificant.

So, "YOU MUST CHILL! I HAVE HIDDEN YOUR KEYS! YOU MUST CHILL!"

Posted at January 15, 2007 8:56 PM in response to MY LEFT FANNY

"Aggressive" is an interesting choice of words.

I would have gone for "ineffective," myself.

Posted at June 29, 2006 4:57 PM in response to Gitmo Trials

Bingo, RT. This whole "pro-war" vs. "anti-war" thing is meaningless.

The question isn't if you like war or not. The question is what do you think we should do about this particular war at this particular moment.

At this point, we've got Republicans who are so clueless as to what to do next that they are going on the record saying we should support amnesty for people who are killing American troops. They are incapable of understanding the difference between amnesty as part of a negotiated peace settlement between all parties and a amnesty as a sign of a floundering Iraqi government selling out its American allies in order to stay in power. They have moved far past wishful thinking and into the realm of outright delusion on this war.

We've been there more than three years, and it's getting worse every day. Someone needs to tell this President to "fish or cut bait." Republicans have had three years to do it. They won't. It's time we found out if Democrats will.

Posted at June 23, 2006 1:22 PM in response to Against The Odds

Um, considering there's just the one superpower left standing and it's currently in Iraq, I am a little uncomfortable with who this makes us in his analogy.

Much as I dislike Bush, he's no Stalin. And while it's not perfect, America is light years from the horror show that was the Soviet Union.

Is it that he's too stupid to know he hates America, or too stupid to realize he's saying that he hates America? Which is worse?

Posted at June 23, 2006 12:14 PM in response to Worst. Analogy. Ever.

I don't think that's right, Vejoranda. Paternalism or noblesse oblige isn't the central driving force of liberalism, though it's informed some of its more notable achievements.

Far more fundamental are believing in things like the rule of law, the equality of those under it to its protections and its constraints, the need for power to be balanced.

There is also a vague "golden rule" notion that underlies all of this--nations in which every member would be equally willing to be born into any other class are are better than ones where people aren't. Justice isn't only more moral, it leads to more worldly success in the long run.

In addition, American liberalism has a history of valuing sustainability. We don't like revolutionary change, we like slow change. In addition, practicality is a virtue that's often valued more highly than ideological purity--we're a nation willing to say "this small fix is going to have to be good enough, let the next generation come up with a better way if this doesn't do the trick." This is why science, economics, facts and figures are so highly valued by liberals--we don't like ideas that won't work, and science, economics, facts & figures have the best track record of separating the workable ideas from the merely pretty ones.

In recent years, better understandings of statistics and better ability to obtain certain kinds of social data have presented a new challenge to liberalism--certain things that seem fair produce unfair outcomes in a predictable way. The internal crisis liberalism faces today is basically that one, but it's not that huge a crisis because we don't really have any policy ideas on how to resolve it.

But the contrast between economic conservatism and liberalism today is pretty clearly the "golden rule" distinction. A Martian landing in America would rather be born rich, white, and male than anything else. Liberals think this is a problem we need to keep working to solve, conservatives think it is not. Additionally, this contrast underlies much of liberal foreign policy--"how would we want this to play out if we were the little country; how can we make a win-win here," seems a concept utterly foreign to conservative policy thinking.

The second is a contrast between liberalism and extremism (both on the right and the left), which is the grounded in high value liberalism places on empiricism. This is threatening to people whose moral understanding of the world is based on how closely it comforms to pretty ideas about how life should be, as opposed to prople whose moral compass can accept that the world is not as it should be, and trying to perfect it (as opposed to improving it) in their lifetime will probably do more harm than good. What's scary about the present political situation is that all liberals in the public debate and a number of sane conservatives fall on one side of this debate, and the political religious right and the Bush Administration fall on the other side, on everything from domestic to foreign policy. There's a terrifying lack of serious thinking about things that actually matter.

Finally, the Bush Administration falls firmly on the opposite side of liberalism (and here, too, sane conservatives join liberals, although fewer) in that it does not respect either the rule of law (formal checks) or the idea that power must be blalanced. The cult of personality surrounding Bush is decidedly anti-liberal.

To sum up: I think liberals are pretty ideologically unified. Liberals today believe in 1)golden rule 2)rule of law and equality under it 3)balance of power 4) sustainability and effectiveness over pretty ideas.

Posted at June 23, 2006 11:47 AM in response to Transactions and Values