Smug Prius owners

[downunder]

Inq, have you been reading an economics textbook mate?

You didn't answer my question on market failure in the healthcare thread... it's pretty relevant here too.

[Bayou Bum]

Moving to the present, Tom Tancredo just gave a speech a couple of days ago (Feb 5) at the "national tea party convention" wherein he called for civics and literacy tests as a requirement for voting suffrage (and threw in a comment alleging Obama won on the votes of people who would have failed these exams). Anyone well educated in US history should hear alarm bells at "civics and literacy tests", as these were staples used to prevent black enfranchisement in the Jim Crow south.

See, I'm surprised at your blatant racism. Why do you think it will be the black population that won't be allowed to vote? It is a fact that the majority of the uneducated voted for Obama, but that is not based on race.

[Bayou Bum]

That is a nice strawman you've built there, BB. No one is saying that everything the Republicans do is based on racism. No one; do you understand that?

Now how about you consider that while most Republicans aren't racists, there is evidence that most white racists are Republicans. Is that possible? Isn't that likely since the old Dixiecrats are almost all Republicans now?

Is it just a coincidence that the Republican party is almost all white? And the average age is pretty high too.

Is there racism by minorities against whites? Absolutely; I'm not in denial. But it pales in comparison (no pun intended) to the racism against minorities, and certainly doesn't excuse it.

If there is evidence that most racists are Republicans, then please provide it. Otherwise, please state it as your opinion and not fact!

[fencerchica]

See, I'm surprised at your blatant racism. Why do you think it will be the black population that won't be allowed to vote? It is a fact that the majority of the uneducated voted for Obama, but that is not based on race.

Yeah, I bet you don't think that hanging up nooses as a political message is racist either, just because non-black people have been killed by hanging too.

[migopod]

See, I'm surprised at your blatant racism. Why do you think it will be the black population that won't be allowed to vote? It is a fact that the majority of the uneducated voted for Obama, but that is not based on race.

The funny thing is that's true. The majority of uneducated people did vote for Obama, as well as the majority of people with all levels of education.

[telkanuru]

Yeah, I bet you don't think that hanging up nooses as a political message is racist either, just because non-black people have been killed by hanging too.

You can lead stupid to knowledge, but you cannot make him think.

[Hauptman]

If there is evidence that most racists are Republicans, then please provide it. Otherwise, please state it as your opinion and not fact!

Are you really in that much denial?

So tell me where DO white racists fall in the political spectrum? You think they're liberals?!?! You are too funny, BB.... seriously, are you doing standup or something?

[jeff]

Quite the contrary. If you want to believe that everything the Republicans do is based on racism

Nope. I never said that, and don't believe it. In fact, I'll make very clear that a lot of prominent Republicans are (IMO) not racist: such as GWB and McCain.

But as an institution, Republicans have shown themselves willing to exploit racism to get votes many times.

a true racist would think that a Republican having a black daughter was racist.

On this we agree - that's why McCain's opponents in the primary ran the ad. Republicans. Glad we settled that for ya.

And compare Obama's Cabinet to Bush's Cabinet. http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet

Bushie did real well on the diversity thing. Crappy on everything else, but like I said, he showed no sign of being a racist AFAIK. Now, with Obama, you have a black guy at the head of the ticket, which is worth a few points on the diversity scale. Or had you forgot?

I'll bet the last time you saw that many white people around one black man was at your KKK rally! But then, that is just my opinion!

Har de har. As Inq said, I don't wear my sheets that way.

[Bayou Bum]

Yeah, I bet you don't think that hanging up nooses as a political message is racist either, just because non-black people have been killed by hanging too.

I didn't realize the Republican Party hung up nooses. Granted, some individuals did. But the accusation is not that some individuals that voted against Obama are racist, but that the Republican Party is racist and uses race in its campaigns. Please show me a campaign ad with a noose.

[Bayou Bum]

The funny thing is that's true. The majority of uneducated people did vote for Obama, as well as the majority of people with all levels of education.

Really, do you have a breakdown of voting by level of education that you can share, or is this just another opinion?

[Bayou Bum]

You can lead stupid to knowledge, but you cannot make him think.

Acknowledging your problem is the first step to recovery. Well done.

[jeff]

No, it is not...to an economist.

Eh? In topic of "public safety", the question of "people are dying" is irrelevant to economists? Citation please, I need to see that. I frankly don't believe that so let's see some proof.

Economists are unconcerned with efficiency or effectiveness? My goodness, what the heck do they spend their time on. And if so, how utterly useless they are.

And in fact not to a lot of other people. If it were the most important thing, there would be no wars, because there would not be any cause thought worth "people dying".

That doesn't follow at all. Sometimes wars are fought, with people dying, in order to forestall even more people dying (proof by existence: just one of the reasons GWB cited for the Iraq war). And sometimes there are other reasons to fight wars. No, that's not right.

However, when the question is "public safety", then unsurprisingly "public safety" is the main point.

But NOT the speed of said prevention...

That's faith healing, not science. It's like the damned commies always bleating like sheep that the state would wither away. At the very best it's merely a platitude. If the desired result hasn't yet occurred, the charlatan can always say "it's still coming, don't you worry".

Frankly, it's useless. To say that the free market will some day, by some means we do not yet know solve problems that are causing death today, is to show the limitations of undergraduate-level macro economics.

How many people are supposed to die - and be grateful for their sacrifice in the name of Free Markets - pending the mythical solutions that somehow will emerge. The idea is absurd.

My argument does not depend on the rigor of someone else's.

Thank goodness for that. If you depended on BB you'd be stuck with your axles in the snow forever. Sorry, mixed metaphor.

Would you like me to bring out Uncle Miltie again?

Do your dastardly worst! (I'm picturing him as the Emperor in Star Wars, always harping on the Dark Side). I'll find him no more convincing than the last time you trotted him out with his tired pronouncements on other topics where he was clearly ignorant. And, if you don't behave, I'll bring out Paul ("Luke") Krugman to smite the old man.

Seriously now: a number of examples of systemic obstacles to the free market being effective as a means to provide consumer safety have been shown, not least of which being asymmetry of information, or the victims not being the consumers.

What specific mechanisms do you propose would have alleviated those situations without the government's intervention and why didn't they happen before the government intervened? I don't want to hear about platitudes or assertions that "this is fundamental economics" - they are completely unconvincing. You're asking me to believe in the Tooth Fairy, and I'm not buying it. Here are real world examples where the market failed, people died, and government stepped in to end harm.

Or perhaps I feel that there are more than the two alternatives of waiting for the market and government regulation...that is, that I am not the one committing the fallacy of bifurcation?

Groovy. Go suggest alternative scenarios.

To an economist, yes.

I'm sure their is (literally) "an economist" (eg: at least 1) who places the so-called free market above human lives, but (a) who cares? Such a person is a fool. And (b) all of them? Really? I want a proof that such a foolish inversion is universal or desirable.

I also have no intention of participating in it: yonder hypothetical economist may be willing to die on the altar of the "free market", but it's immoral for him to suggest that other people die for it against their wills.

I have done that many times ere now---where it applies. Is this such sweet music to a progressive's ears that he must hear it sung over and over? My voice is nothing to write home about

Oh, we want to hear your dulcet tones. If Tom Waits can record an album, so can you.

I object to taking it as a fundamental assumption from which further critiques of Republican are then to be built. Most of the "proof" usually adduced seems to depend on an uncritical willingness o accept the premise. It becomes quite circular: The Republicans are obviously racist, therefore these statements by some of them are "coded" racism, which proves that Republicans are racist".

It's time for me to put up the facepalm gesture then. It's a matter of historical fact that (some) Republicans have exploited racism for partisan reasons. That doesn't say that all Republicans are racist, nor that they haven't been the victim of racism on occasion. But this is the heart of the Southern Strategy, and not a secret.

Let's get specific: just what do you think the Atwater tactics, or the attacks on McCain and Ford were, if they were not use of racism?

Ah, ah, ah! Burden of proof, remember?

Done, and done, and done, and....

Perhaps first you could prove the actual use of this ad? I mean, I'm sure you wouldn't expect me to take your word for it, would you? Any more than you'd take mine were the circumstances reversed?

I see that this has already been addressed.

However, if you said to me "such and such a thing happened", relating to a factual event, I would at least start with the assumption that you were being truthful. For example: if you said "Miltie said XYZ" I would take your word for it as a fact. I might think he's completely wrong, but I wouldn't start by doubting your word.

How about someone saying what you say they said in a non "coded" form?

That kind of confession by political operatives is few and far between. They tend not to be the kind of people that make that sort of admission. But Lee Atwater did exactly that. Otherwise, what do you suppose he was apologizing for on his death bed?

[Guided by Wire]

Really, do you have a breakdown of voting by level of education that you can share, or is this just another opinion?

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1

Halfway down the page.

[migopod]

Really, do you have a breakdown of voting by level of education that you can share, or is this just another opinion?

It's by exit poling at least, but the data can be obtained here
Breakdown:

No High School (4%) O=63% M=35% no answer=2%
H.S. Graduate (20%) O=52% M=46% no answer=2%
Some College (31%) O=51% M=47% no answer=2%
College Graduate (28%) O=50% M=48% no answer=2%
Postgraduate (17%) O=58% M=40% no answer=2%

[Bayou Bum]

It's by exit poling at least, but the data can be obtained here
Breakdown:

No High School (4%) O=63% M=35% no answer=2%
H.S. Graduate (20%) O=52% M=46% no answer=2%
Some College (31%) O=51% M=47% no answer=2%
College Graduate (28%) O=50% M=48% no answer=2%
Postgraduate (17%) O=58% M=40% no answer=2%

You're right. Thanks for the link. I was too lazy to look it up myself.

[Inquartata]

I know 2 people in Greenville that say they got that call. It was a telephone poll. There is no concrete "proof" it was done by the Bush people, if there was Bush would have been held acountable. But who else could have benifited?

OK. I will accept arguendo that it happened, although not documented, since there are two confirming sources.

But your argument now comes down to "Well, no one knows who did it, but it MUST have been Republicans"?

Let me present an alternative theory, every bit as speculative and unprovable as yours: Could it have been Democrats trying to knobble the Republican candidate they saw as most viable in the general election, in favor of a less threatening one?

Sounds pretty wild and unlikely, right? So it is, so it is. But that's also how "it must have been some Republicans" sounds to me...

I have however heard it before, argued by Christian Reconstructionists.

Well, but...would you accept an assertion of "personal communication" as proof of a statement I might make? That is, a statement contrary to something you believed?

Cites

Does it make you at all uneasy that in the Boston Globe op ed, Davis, McCain's campaign manager, says that "We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made". But in the Nation article, Ann Banks, blogger and travel writer, confidently identifies usual suspect Karl Rove as the eminence grise behind the operation? Doesn't offer any proof of it, but says so unhesitatingly...

Insider doesn't know, outsider does?

Lots of campaigns use push polling as a way of subtly and sometimes not so subtly fuelling rumors about a candidate, mostly because they aren't asserting something as much as asking how a voter would feel about a supposedly hypothetical situation, but by asking the question it suggests the possibility of truth.

Sure. But it's a BIT of a leap from that to "Republicans did a specific one using racist messages", much less to "The Republican Party uses racist messages all the time", don't you think?

Look, I'm willing to accept that some Republicans might do so, if I am shown proof. I am not so willing to swallow the assertions that all Republicans are racist, that the Party power structure in general is, that Republicans generally will resort to "coded" racism at the drop of a hat or that any substantial number of party bosses will. Any of those will need a lot more in the way of proof than a Wiki entry for a concept or a clever phrase for it, much less merely one of my interlocutors fervent belief that it's standard practice...

What's telling about this particular situation is that the if suggestion was that McCain had fathered an illegitimate child, it would have been probably damning enough, but the "pollsters" felt it necessary to specify that the child could also be black.

Davis also mentions an email by a Richard Hand alleging the child-out-of-wedlock. But apparently that relied solely upon that particular charge...

[Inquartata]

Inq, have you been reading an economics textbook mate?

Usually.

Well, not textbooks, exactly. But books by economists.

You didn't answer my question on market failure in the healthcare thread... it's pretty relevant here too.

All things in time. I am waging wars on multiple fronts here.

When you argue with as many people as extensively on as many threads
simultaneously as I do, it's easy to fall behind or even lose some...or just get more interested in one than another. Jeff sometimes accuses me of "abandoning" arguments; frankly I don't know where he finds the time or energy to keep up with everything. I can't do it. Maybe because he's an actual writer, whereas I am just a cantankerous dabbler.

However, I am having knee surgery Monday and will be on sick leave all next week; so perhaps I may be able to catch up somewhat then.

So tell me where DO white racists fall in the political spectrum? You think they're liberals?!?!

Note, the accusation wasn't that "most racists are on the conservative end of the political spectrum", it was that "most racists are Republicans". I can tell you that large numbers of really far-right conservatives are racists---but NOT Republicans. In fact they consider the Republican Party to be too wishy-washy and too apt to compromise with progressives to represent their fervor, and have almost as much contempt for Republicans as Democrats. They tend to call themselves libertarians or independents, if anything. They may vote ( IF they vote ) for Republicans as lesser evils, but they don't like the Party and don't identify with it...

I am talking about people even more fervent and strident than Chase. And for that matter, there are folks to the right of them: bat-**** crazies like---well, it's not wise to mention names, they tend to have enemies lists and they take them seriously. These see Republicans as appeasers at best and traitors to the Republic at worst.

And---do you think the most visible racists, such as the neo-Nazis, would stoop to self-identify with the Republican Party?

[Inquartata]

The funny thing is that's true. The majority of uneducated people did vote for Obama, as well as the majority of people with all levels of education.

I beg leave to doubt that, since turnout of eligible voters in 2008 was IIRC only about 63%. This means that in effect it is just about impossible for "the majority of people" to have voted for Obama, since what? 37%? either aren't eligible, aren't registered or didn't cast ballots at all. Even winning 53% of the popular vote thus wouldn't amount to "the majority of people".

Of course, I am the resident math idiot, so maybe I'm way off base...

[migopod]

I beg leave to doubt that, since turnout of eligible voters in 2008 was IIRC only about 63%. This means that in effect it is just about impossible for "the majority of people" to have voted for Obama, since what? 37%? either aren't eligible, aren't registered or didn't cast ballots at all. Even winning 53% of the popular vote thus wouldn't amount to "the majority of people".

Of course, I am the resident math idiot, so maybe I'm way off base...

Okay, among the people who voted in the 2008 presidential election, Obama won at least the plurality in all educational demographic groups, not merely the least educated. Better?

[jessicasimpson]

But your argument now comes down to "Well, no one knows who did it, but it MUST have been Republicans"?

Your right, maybe it wasn't Republicans. I bet it was the person that killed Nicole Brown Simpson, Ron Goldman, Jean-Binet Rammsey, and Gary Condit's intern. Then they injected Barry Bonds with steroids without his knowledge.