Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

Well, it's true that there can be an effect of polarization and reciprocal fear. But the middle positions tend to buffer.

There is a problem though when one extreme quiets down for whatever reason, and the other uses the opportunity to move the entire field in that direction. I think that's what has happened with liberal values. In the 90s the fall of the Soviet Union allowed more pure capitalistic models to emerge victorious (in a gross misunderstanding of the real implications). "Liberal" became a bad word. The idea of companies becoming leaner and meaner took hold. The value of individual workers disappeared. It was the law of the jungle for many.

And we're seeing the results of the emergence of an extreme right, which still struggles to understand that their economic model only creates the illusion of success in the short term, but that after a decade or more of abusing it, the whole thing falls apart. We have become too complex a society for any semblance of a libertarian, semianarchic society with unrestrained free markets to succeed. There are too many gaps, too many places where people can fall through the cracks. Well, that's at least my view.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

I like that. I will endeavor to put aside my own (irrational?) fear that socioeconomic (added: and ideological, of course) polarization is accelerating the fall of western civilization, and do more buffering.

I agree, and find it interesting that a popular meme on the right has been that they have been abandoned, even victimized by the government and the media. I see the pitfalls of pure left governance as well, but the idea that we are teetering of the brink of socialism seems absurd to me. Especially when the few surviving "socialistic" societies are small and mostly homogeneous.
It's seems to me that most extreme points of view labor under a common misperception that basic human nature has radically changed over the last 100 years. I guess things have been good enough to have caused mass hysterical and historical amnesia.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

Sure, if you want to be technical about it. Here's the difference, though. Your team thinks the newsletters negate virtually everything else that is good about Paul. Bob does not.

Paul is the first person I've seen in a long time that actually seems to behave like a Christian. The reason I left the church as a teenager was because it was so full of hypocrites.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

Vitamin deficiency. Attention deficit. Or maybe you think these people are inferior beings in some way? I don't.

Maybe you can take a look at my response to Harry. I said there are times when liberals are needed and times when conservatives are needed. All things relative.

Above.

Not sure what you mean here.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

no shit

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

I have actually never heard anyone on the right claim that they have been abandoned by the government. Perhaps you can provide an example of this.

But I would agree that many on the right feel victimized by being demonized and misrepresented by the media.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

I am not on a team. I don't believe we can carve people up and pretend that the parts of them we don't like don't exist. Others differ. That's fine.

As for "technical". Yes. I was being technical and pedantic by referring to what Bob actually said and a distinction he thought was important in characterizing his views.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

Again, what's with the extreme abstraction? Who says Paul's newsletters don't exist? Your not-team (the people on this board who are politically aligned with your views) believes that newsletters are a bigger consideration than personal freedom, perpetual war, corruption in government, etc.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

They're deficient, by definition, in very specific areas if they are correctly diagnosed. They're not morally inferior, but it's very difficult for me to see how one can claim both that 1) someone's moral opinions are deficient, and 2) one isn't making a claim about their moral inferiority.

If we are at the level where we are disagreeing about whether deficient and inferior convey similar meanings, I am not really sure about the point of continuing.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

Well, some people say they're not actually Paul's letters.

But in any case, you were overstating what most people said which wasn't that Paul's newsletters negate the positive aspects of Paul, but rather that the cost of his newsletters is higher than the benefit of his views.

Of course, other than wonderment and a couple of others, most people actually don't believe in the more general abstraction of Ron Paul's FP views, so obviously they won't see Paul's views as highly positive as someone who doesn't believe that America should ever involve itself militarily no matter the situation. Other people will also weight the contents of the newsletter more highly, of course.

It's pretty well-established that Bob is more focused on FP than on domestic affairs but someone who doesn't have this focus could easily come to a different conclusion.

I honestly find it a little tiresome that whenever someone weights things differentlythan you do or come to different conclusions there this huge chance that it gets characterized as this corrupt and/or unfair thing where someone who is skeptical about Paul's story about the newsletter or thinks that racism is a bigger problem than having a miltary is being horrifically unfair to Paul, etc.

At this point, AFAICT, it's only me you and badhat on this thread and I don't see any of the three of us changing our views. So I will see you on the other (disqus) side.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

awww, you're no fun.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

That's right I wasn't making a claim about liberals' moral inferiority. However, you said that I was making a value judgment. How to resolve?

Okay, but you brought up the issue.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

Actually, I think they are. He owns the moral responsibility for the content within them. How big that moral responsibility is can be debated.

Not TwinSwords. He's absolutely certain that if you endorse anything about Ron Paul, you're a moral monster. As to people who actually balance the issues and decide against Paul, why would I have a problem with that? Wonderment said he's not voting for Paul. Did you see me get on his case about it? It might help if you stopped thinking of me as a Paultard.

Why would I have a problem with people who have different opinions? If you feel tired about anything, I believe it's more related to your misunderstanding of my POV.

It was you who questioned my motives and arguments, e.g., altruism. I've never been concerned with changing anyone's views; I recall saying so last year. That's a fool's errand.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

You're right, I was sort of shoving the two together, 'cause I'm lazy. I think I mean "unrepresented", as evidenced by the "take back the country" meme.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

Unrepresented. OK, but I don't think the main complaint about the government is not about being represented, at least for me.

I would say that one big complaint is that the government is too engaged with picking people who are worthy of representation by picking groups that get special favors, etc. There are many groups of course on both sides. I think a true conservative would say that the government is there to make laws (as few as possible that can address the issues of its citizens) and enforce them without consideration of the various factions which exist...as long as they fit the overall scheme of the original intent of the constitution.

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

Nothing wrong with that. Do you think that affording corporations the same rights as individuals fits the scheme of the original intent of the constitution?

Re: Matt Yglesias: Creating Jobs by Cutting Wages
 

Silence sometimes speaks volumes. Do correct me if I am mistaken in any way here (LOL), but whether you realize it or not, giving corporations the same rights as individuals, especially concerning campaign contributions will open the door to the worst government / corporate corruption and influence in our history IMO.
And it's already well underway.
You (recovering interventionist neocons turned "libertarian") speak of individual (human) freedom, but your actions appear to promote corporate rule.
I think the push for "small government" is intended to sugar coat this very bitter pill.
I am for medium size government, separation of church and state and limited corporate control... in other words, a radical.
How do you think my POV differs from that of the constitutional framers?