Monday, June 07, 2010
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Will Opine For Food
I'm still working on a list of topics for papers I want to submit for publication.
One set is the list of "interfaces" between political science and economics, which Bryan Caplan listed in his ECON 854 course.
Also these:
A survey to measure the Mueller Effect.
An analysis of the concept of "collective intelligence" in public- and private-sector organizations.
What *should* be done (and have been done) concerning the BP oil spill.
A critique of Rand Paul's gaffe about the 1964 Civil Rights Act (from a perspective very close to Richard Epstein's).
Why it's actually beneficial that Islamofascists are challenging some of our most fundamental concepts like religious tolerance.
A response to Is the Welfare State Justified? by Daniel Shapiro.
A critique of so-called "libertarian paternalism."
An analysis of the economic-efficiency (social-welfare) effects of the so-called "Neutrality" or "Generality" rule.
A response to Dan Klein's criticism of the social welfare function as "loose, vague, and indeterminate."
A response to Bryan Caplan's criticism of Pareto optimality (possibly combined with the previous topic). Both of these would build on the defenses of economic efficiency as a standard, made by David Friedman and Richard Epstein.
Something else that I forgot.
One set is the list of "interfaces" between political science and economics, which Bryan Caplan listed in his ECON 854 course.
Also these:
A survey to measure the Mueller Effect.
An analysis of the concept of "collective intelligence" in public- and private-sector organizations.
What *should* be done (and have been done) concerning the BP oil spill.
A critique of Rand Paul's gaffe about the 1964 Civil Rights Act (from a perspective very close to Richard Epstein's).
Why it's actually beneficial that Islamofascists are challenging some of our most fundamental concepts like religious tolerance.
A response to Is the Welfare State Justified? by Daniel Shapiro.
A critique of so-called "libertarian paternalism."
An analysis of the economic-efficiency (social-welfare) effects of the so-called "Neutrality" or "Generality" rule.
A response to Dan Klein's criticism of the social welfare function as "loose, vague, and indeterminate."
A response to Bryan Caplan's criticism of Pareto optimality (possibly combined with the previous topic). Both of these would build on the defenses of economic efficiency as a standard, made by David Friedman and Richard Epstein.
Something else that I forgot.
Friday, April 09, 2010
How To Solve The Financial Crisis
Someone asked me to recommend him some academic economics journal articles about the causes of the Financial Crisis. I demurred, and explained why:
Mainstream economics, and at least 80% of all economics, is "free-market" in the sense that it understands and approves of the free market, and only wants to interfere with it when it will actually do some good for society as a whole, and wants the intervention to be as small and as market-based as possible.
So it would only support things like a Negative Income Tax (which Milton Friedman invented), or school vouchers (which Friedman also supported), and other sorts of vouchers.
To clarify even more: The overwhelming majority of economists dislike the vast majority of current government programs, even though they are moderate-liberal Democrats themselves. (For the question of why they still support the Democrats even though they oppose their programs, I refer you to Professor Klein, whose class I'm typing this in, and also Arnold Kling. Kling says it's "culture" or "psychological identification" -- they're more comfortable with fellow-intellectuals that they disagree with, rather than rednecks that they despise. They'd rather belong to the party of Soft Heads than the party of Hard Hearts.)
So just about *any* economics journal article would be acceptable.
Second, to quote Nobel Prize-winner George Stigler, "The typical article in a professional journal is unrelated to public policy -- and often apparently unrelated to anything in reality." So from that point of view *no* journal article would be acceptable. Use blogs, or articles in "popular journals," e.g. Atlantic or The Economist, instead.
Third, people -- even experts who are generally within the same economic doctrine -- are still arguing about what went wrong, never mind how to fix it.
Bottom line: Google "financial" and "crisis" at site:econlog.econlib.org
Here's my take on what happened:
1. For a variety of reasons, some due to human miscalculation and some due to government intervention, we had a housing bubble: prices rose above a reasonable level, people kept buying anyway, and people overextended themselves buying housing on credit (zero-down mortgages).
Clear definition of a reasonable level: If bonds are paying 3% per year (33 x earnings) it's not reasonable to pay 50 x (expected) earnings for stocks. It makes no sense! It might make sense for a specific stock if you thought its expected earnings were going to skyrocket, or if you thought everyone else was about to mistakenly think its expected earnings were going to skyrocket, but not to do it across the board.
2. Eventually the bubble burst and housing prices dropped drastically. Therefore some people started defaulting on their mortgages (because they weren't worth keeping -- the debt was higher than the new value of the house) and even the mortgages that didn't default (yet) had to be re-valued and banks suddenly found their collateral for loans had disappeared and their balance sheets were horrible. For a variety of reasons, partly because the housing bubble had so many participants and partly because the risk was "spread around" by "bundling" mortgages, this meant a *lot* of banks and other financial houses were hit.
3. When the housing bubble burst, it also affected people who were relatively solvent, by dropping the value of their houses; and this affected the stock market. People *were* buying stocks by using the equity in their homes, and felt fine about it; now the equity disappeared -- it was just as if they found out their rich uncle who previously said he would leave all his wealth to them had suddenly decided to disinherit them -- started selling off stocks because they wanted cash in hand. This drove the value of stocks down, which caused even more panic selling.
4. Therefore, not only were people defaulting on mortgages but there were also people whose lives were unaffected by anything physical, anything that could be seen by watching a silent videotape of Before versus After, who felt poor and/or panicked. People who still had jobs and could meet their mortgage payments (same as before) and pay their groceries and utility bills (same as before) because all their paper wealth (the equity of their houses, and the value of their stock portfolios) had evaporated. (By the way, one extremely important thing to understand is that my vampire RPG character, Mr Grey a/k/a Caliban, lost 3/4 of his wealth in the crisis, because almost all of his wealth was in stocks and real estate -- I had established the basics of his investments when I created him back in 2002!)
5. Also, businesses were affected because capital dried up. People saved/invested less because they didn't have paper wealth, so they didn't have as much money to put into banks. (Previously, they had been getting cash by refinancing their houses, or by selling them, at inflated prices, or from the stock market, and then putting it into banks or stocks or more real estate.) And so banks didn't have as much cash on hand *and* they couldn't make any new loans anyway, because they were overextended because the value of the collateral on all their previous loans was gone. It was exactly as if tornadoes had devastated all the houses so there wasn't any collateral value left.
6. Banks reacted by drastically reducing the amount of new loans they made. Partly they raised their interest rates but mostly they just became very, very cautious; they wanted to see huge amounts of collateral before they would make a loan for anything, either homes or business loans or automobile loans or anything else. This helped cause a *real* recession (decline in employment and production and incomes, which then causes more decline, etc.) in addition to the crash of *paper* wealth (loss of value of real estate and stocks).
7. IMO the proper response by government would have been to say "Nobody is too big to fail; when you play with fire, you gonna get burn'; when you take the profits you gotta take the losses as well. We have guaranteed people's bank accounts up to $100,000 per person if they failed; we will make a special temporary increase up to $250,000 or $500,000 for the next year or two to cushion the blow so people aren't hurt *too* badly. We will also increase unemployment benefits to help those who have temporarily lost their jobs due to the recession. We will also reform the welfare system" -- hey, I'm like Rahm Emmanuel, I never want to let a good crisis go to waste, and reforming welfare to be more like a Negative Income Tax / Guaranteed Income system is something we should have done 40 years ago -- "and eliminate corporate welfare and other subsidies" -- as I always say, I don't know if we need more spending the less-fortunate but we definitely need less spending on the more-fortunate -- "and use all those savings to cut the deficit, which will boost the economy while bringing us *out* of debt instead of further into it."
8. Unfortunately, the government decided, by the most amazing coincidence, to do something to help out the people and groups who were politically powerful and well-connected. So they decided to bail out Wall Street bankers and brokers, and also the people who defaulted on their mortgages that they should never have gotten in the first place, and the non-Wall Street bankers who should never have given those mortgages in the first place -- in other words, gangs of criminals who ripped off hard-working taxpayers. I have some sympathy for poor, uneducated people who lied on their mortgage documents, but no sympathy for white-collar criminal "banksters" who told them to do it.
Mainstream economics, and at least 80% of all economics, is "free-market" in the sense that it understands and approves of the free market, and only wants to interfere with it when it will actually do some good for society as a whole, and wants the intervention to be as small and as market-based as possible.
So it would only support things like a Negative Income Tax (which Milton Friedman invented), or school vouchers (which Friedman also supported), and other sorts of vouchers.
To clarify even more: The overwhelming majority of economists dislike the vast majority of current government programs, even though they are moderate-liberal Democrats themselves. (For the question of why they still support the Democrats even though they oppose their programs, I refer you to Professor Klein, whose class I'm typing this in, and also Arnold Kling. Kling says it's "culture" or "psychological identification" -- they're more comfortable with fellow-intellectuals that they disagree with, rather than rednecks that they despise. They'd rather belong to the party of Soft Heads than the party of Hard Hearts.)
So just about *any* economics journal article would be acceptable.
Second, to quote Nobel Prize-winner George Stigler, "The typical article in a professional journal is unrelated to public policy -- and often apparently unrelated to anything in reality." So from that point of view *no* journal article would be acceptable. Use blogs, or articles in "popular journals," e.g. Atlantic or The Economist, instead.
Third, people -- even experts who are generally within the same economic doctrine -- are still arguing about what went wrong, never mind how to fix it.
Bottom line: Google "financial" and "crisis" at site:econlog.econlib.org
Here's my take on what happened:
1. For a variety of reasons, some due to human miscalculation and some due to government intervention, we had a housing bubble: prices rose above a reasonable level, people kept buying anyway, and people overextended themselves buying housing on credit (zero-down mortgages).
Clear definition of a reasonable level: If bonds are paying 3% per year (33 x earnings) it's not reasonable to pay 50 x (expected) earnings for stocks. It makes no sense! It might make sense for a specific stock if you thought its expected earnings were going to skyrocket, or if you thought everyone else was about to mistakenly think its expected earnings were going to skyrocket, but not to do it across the board.
2. Eventually the bubble burst and housing prices dropped drastically. Therefore some people started defaulting on their mortgages (because they weren't worth keeping -- the debt was higher than the new value of the house) and even the mortgages that didn't default (yet) had to be re-valued and banks suddenly found their collateral for loans had disappeared and their balance sheets were horrible. For a variety of reasons, partly because the housing bubble had so many participants and partly because the risk was "spread around" by "bundling" mortgages, this meant a *lot* of banks and other financial houses were hit.
3. When the housing bubble burst, it also affected people who were relatively solvent, by dropping the value of their houses; and this affected the stock market. People *were* buying stocks by using the equity in their homes, and felt fine about it; now the equity disappeared -- it was just as if they found out their rich uncle who previously said he would leave all his wealth to them had suddenly decided to disinherit them -- started selling off stocks because they wanted cash in hand. This drove the value of stocks down, which caused even more panic selling.
4. Therefore, not only were people defaulting on mortgages but there were also people whose lives were unaffected by anything physical, anything that could be seen by watching a silent videotape of Before versus After, who felt poor and/or panicked. People who still had jobs and could meet their mortgage payments (same as before) and pay their groceries and utility bills (same as before) because all their paper wealth (the equity of their houses, and the value of their stock portfolios) had evaporated. (By the way, one extremely important thing to understand is that my vampire RPG character, Mr Grey a/k/a Caliban, lost 3/4 of his wealth in the crisis, because almost all of his wealth was in stocks and real estate -- I had established the basics of his investments when I created him back in 2002!)
5. Also, businesses were affected because capital dried up. People saved/invested less because they didn't have paper wealth, so they didn't have as much money to put into banks. (Previously, they had been getting cash by refinancing their houses, or by selling them, at inflated prices, or from the stock market, and then putting it into banks or stocks or more real estate.) And so banks didn't have as much cash on hand *and* they couldn't make any new loans anyway, because they were overextended because the value of the collateral on all their previous loans was gone. It was exactly as if tornadoes had devastated all the houses so there wasn't any collateral value left.
6. Banks reacted by drastically reducing the amount of new loans they made. Partly they raised their interest rates but mostly they just became very, very cautious; they wanted to see huge amounts of collateral before they would make a loan for anything, either homes or business loans or automobile loans or anything else. This helped cause a *real* recession (decline in employment and production and incomes, which then causes more decline, etc.) in addition to the crash of *paper* wealth (loss of value of real estate and stocks).
7. IMO the proper response by government would have been to say "Nobody is too big to fail; when you play with fire, you gonna get burn'; when you take the profits you gotta take the losses as well. We have guaranteed people's bank accounts up to $100,000 per person if they failed; we will make a special temporary increase up to $250,000 or $500,000 for the next year or two to cushion the blow so people aren't hurt *too* badly. We will also increase unemployment benefits to help those who have temporarily lost their jobs due to the recession. We will also reform the welfare system" -- hey, I'm like Rahm Emmanuel, I never want to let a good crisis go to waste, and reforming welfare to be more like a Negative Income Tax / Guaranteed Income system is something we should have done 40 years ago -- "and eliminate corporate welfare and other subsidies" -- as I always say, I don't know if we need more spending the less-fortunate but we definitely need less spending on the more-fortunate -- "and use all those savings to cut the deficit, which will boost the economy while bringing us *out* of debt instead of further into it."
8. Unfortunately, the government decided, by the most amazing coincidence, to do something to help out the people and groups who were politically powerful and well-connected. So they decided to bail out Wall Street bankers and brokers, and also the people who defaulted on their mortgages that they should never have gotten in the first place, and the non-Wall Street bankers who should never have given those mortgages in the first place -- in other words, gangs of criminals who ripped off hard-working taxpayers. I have some sympathy for poor, uneducated people who lied on their mortgage documents, but no sympathy for white-collar criminal "banksters" who told them to do it.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
In the Seattle Daily Weekly: Gay, Mentally Challenged Biracial Male Cheerleader Claims Discrimination
Well, I for one am proud to live in a country where a guy like that can be elected President.
After all, Obama is biracial; Jimmy Carter is mentally-challenged; Bill Clinton was a male cheerleader.
Well, I for one am proud to live in a country where a guy like that can be elected President.
After all, Obama is biracial; Jimmy Carter is mentally-challenged; Bill Clinton was a male cheerleader.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Just Posted on Vanity Fair
If the Supremes had made the decision Mr Rollins wanted, it means (as Ilya Somin points out) that *unions* would have been banned from making political contributions, and (as Matt Welch points out) *nonprofit* corporations would have been banned from making political statements.
Would Mr Rollins have approved if MoveOn.org’s Campaign to Defend America had been blocked by George W. Bush’s Federal Elections Commission from broadcasting a documentary called “McCain: The Movie” during the 2008 election?
Because that's exactly what the FCC tried to do with Citizens United, and apparently he supports that decision.
Or does he only want free speech rights for those who agree with him? Is he a fool or a hypocrite?
[Update:] I apologize for calling Mr Rollins a fool or a hypocrite; I do think his *opinion* is either foolish or unjust. If organized groups are banned from politics then only individuals will be able to make political statements and contributions -- and that gives a big advantage to rich individuals. It's easier and simpler to get $1 million from one donor than to get $1000 from a thousand or $10 from ten thousand. Organized groups like PACs and unions help coordinate the contributions of the middle- and working-classes so they can help balance those of the rich. And I repeat that if we allow this for progressive organizations it is unfair to deny equal rights to reactionary ones.
Would Mr Rollins have approved if MoveOn.org’s Campaign to Defend America had been blocked by George W. Bush’s Federal Elections Commission from broadcasting a documentary called “McCain: The Movie” during the 2008 election?
Because that's exactly what the FCC tried to do with Citizens United, and apparently he supports that decision.
Or does he only want free speech rights for those who agree with him? Is he a fool or a hypocrite?
[Update:] I apologize for calling Mr Rollins a fool or a hypocrite; I do think his *opinion* is either foolish or unjust. If organized groups are banned from politics then only individuals will be able to make political statements and contributions -- and that gives a big advantage to rich individuals. It's easier and simpler to get $1 million from one donor than to get $1000 from a thousand or $10 from ten thousand. Organized groups like PACs and unions help coordinate the contributions of the middle- and working-classes so they can help balance those of the rich. And I repeat that if we allow this for progressive organizations it is unfair to deny equal rights to reactionary ones.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Kenesaw Mountain Chicken Droppings
To the tune of "Kenesaw Mountain Landis" by Jonathan Coulton:
Kenesaw Mountain Landis was a scumbag and a bigot
and shouldn't even be immortalized in funny songs;
he should be mocked and ridiculed forever
for keeping baseball segregated for so long . . .
Not to mention all the First Amendment vi-o-lations
at the trials of dissidents that he presided at;
while I love Jonathan Coulton I hate Kenesaw Landis
(although he had a cool name)
and that is all that I have to say about that!
Kenesaw Mountain Landis was a scumbag and a bigot
and shouldn't even be immortalized in funny songs;
he should be mocked and ridiculed forever
for keeping baseball segregated for so long . . .
Not to mention all the First Amendment vi-o-lations
at the trials of dissidents that he presided at;
while I love Jonathan Coulton I hate Kenesaw Landis
(although he had a cool name)
and that is all that I have to say about that!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Too Skinny Even For Me
I enjoy Ralph Lauren's fashion sense -- it reminds me of the Reagan era -- you know, "morning in America" -- but this time I'm on the other side, along with Xeni, Cory Doctorow, Instapundit, Popehat, and the American Bar Association:
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Hear, Hear
"The party's over. Neither I nor anyone else in government has a right to anything you earn or own. And you have no right to anything that I or anyone else earns or owns.
"It's okay to love your neighbor, but I have no right to force you to take care of his medical needs ... or support him money if he loses his job ... or hire him at a wage that I deem to be fair ... or help him financially, or otherwise, in any other way.
"From octomoms in California to welfare bums in Massachusetts ... from environmen-talists in Oregon to heroine addicts in New York City ... I have no right to force you to accommodate their desires just because they call them needs. And by no stretch of the imagination are anyone's "needs" rights. The only rights an individual possesses are those given to him by God."
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
"Reporters tend to treat public policy issues with all the depth of, well, movie directors: See problem. Talk about problem. WHY ISN'T PROBLEM BEING FIXED!" -----Matt Welch, "Ink-Stained Retch"
Never Again
"The fact that the Holocaust Museum
needs armed guards
is why we need a Holocaust Museum." -----James Lileks
needs armed guards
is why we need a Holocaust Museum." -----James Lileks
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Prescriptions for Disaster
"I think getting doctors on a salary is the very first solution..."The original rationale for HMOs was that the insurance company would be paid a fixed amount per patient per month (although this might be modified by the patient's pre-existing medical conditions) and would be required to provide whatever medical care was necessary; therefore, they would have an incentive to do things the most economical way, i.e. through preventive medicine whenever possible.
That sounded great to me, and it still sounds like a good goal.
Unfortunately, as Adam Smith predicted (when talking about education), instead this gave an incentive for insurers to provide as little care as possible, by making the quality as low as possible, and making it as difficult as possible to obtain it.
In Bryan Caplan's class on microeconomics, he explained the concept of "moral hazard" to us, with plenty of amusing examples. I suggest this as another one.
So, how do we actually accomplish the original goal?
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Second-Best News All Day
My friend and mentor Bryan Caplan -- the guy responsible for my switching from political theory and English literature to economics, and for going to George Mason University -- thus forcing me into courses in which I actually have to learn something during the semester! -- has asked to blog one of my answers to one of his exams.
I'm pretty thrilled. It kind of makes up for the crapsack April I had (with severe downward trends in school, finances, health, and a friendship).
I'm pretty thrilled. It kind of makes up for the crapsack April I had (with severe downward trends in school, finances, health, and a friendship).
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Placeholder Post
David Friedman (and others) talk about the Stupid Party and the Evil Party.
I believe it was H. L. Mencken who said "Each party claims the other is unfit to rule, and they're both right."
Here's a YouTube video from one party about the other.
I believe it was H. L. Mencken who said "Each party claims the other is unfit to rule, and they're both right."
Here's a YouTube video from one party about the other.
"How I Became A Libertarian" by Michael Shermer
I'm a big fan of skepticism and skeptics, and my heart breaks and bleeds when I see how many of them are gullible followers of left-wing pseudoeconomics. One of the brightest lights of skepticism is Michael Shermer, who has written a blog post called "How I Became a Libertarian."
Thursday, April 16, 2009
PCer Than Thou
I just posted this on Ezra Levant's blog:
Rebekah wrote: "I am in a debate with someone at the moment who says that freedom of speech is a civil right, and as such we have no right to judge other cultures or regimes that deny freedom of speech. Could I ask, how would you answer this?"
Oh, I love debating against leftists. It's so much fun to see their eyes pop out when their own Politically Correct slogans are used against them!
I would use two arguments. The first is: "I believe in freedom of speech because I believe in equality. If there is no freedom of speech, that means that some people can say what they want, and some views get expressed, but other people -- minorities and the oppressed -- and other views get suppressed. Don't you believe in equal rights for everyone in society?"
If the PC leftist actually admits that he thinks "respecting other cultures" is more important than equal rights, my other argument would be: "Okay, I won't argue against that position. Instead, I'll just say that according to your own statment it's fine for Americans or Canadians or other Europeans to suppress arguments for pacifism, atheism, homosexuality, feminism, or anything else because those are against the values of Eurocentric culture."
Of course if you happen to know the particular Politically Correct causes that he supports, you should use them as examples.
As far as I can see, the only argument against that would be for the leftist to claim that Islamofascist values are actually *better* than our cultural values. If he does, you can attack him for being "judgemental" and "inegalitarian" and also debate him on the merits of our values versus his.
Rebekah wrote: "I am in a debate with someone at the moment who says that freedom of speech is a civil right, and as such we have no right to judge other cultures or regimes that deny freedom of speech. Could I ask, how would you answer this?"
Oh, I love debating against leftists. It's so much fun to see their eyes pop out when their own Politically Correct slogans are used against them!
I would use two arguments. The first is: "I believe in freedom of speech because I believe in equality. If there is no freedom of speech, that means that some people can say what they want, and some views get expressed, but other people -- minorities and the oppressed -- and other views get suppressed. Don't you believe in equal rights for everyone in society?"
If the PC leftist actually admits that he thinks "respecting other cultures" is more important than equal rights, my other argument would be: "Okay, I won't argue against that position. Instead, I'll just say that according to your own statment it's fine for Americans or Canadians or other Europeans to suppress arguments for pacifism, atheism, homosexuality, feminism, or anything else because those are against the values of Eurocentric culture."
Of course if you happen to know the particular Politically Correct causes that he supports, you should use them as examples.
As far as I can see, the only argument against that would be for the leftist to claim that Islamofascist values are actually *better* than our cultural values. If he does, you can attack him for being "judgemental" and "inegalitarian" and also debate him on the merits of our values versus his.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Old Skool Gamin'
I'm getting back to my roots, to my ancestral culture, to my people's ancient heritage.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Bitter Sweet
I'm impressed, and not in a good way, with the new "game" from Twix (the candy bar). They actually managed to get me to agree with the Politically Correct femocrats at safercampus.org.
I don't know if you're aware that this ad campaign has provoked a very negative reaction among people; one website described it as an "interactive date-rape tutorial."
I'm a man, and I'm not Politically Correct, and even I dislike the fact that your company apparently thinks the best alternative to choose, at the end of the game, is to lie to the woman.
A relationship based upon a Big Lie is going to fail, and at least one person will be unhappy with it. Or, if you're saying that's okay because it's just a one-night stand and the guy will have sex, then I'm offended as a Christian -- someone who believes that sex outside of marriage is a bad idea...like eating too much candy.
Congratulations, though, on an ad campaign that actually makes me agree with Poltiically Correct femocrats about something! I'm putting this on my blog! (Oh, yeah, obviously your ad wizards don't know much about blogging, either.)
I don't know if you're aware that this ad campaign has provoked a very negative reaction among people; one website described it as an "interactive date-rape tutorial."
I'm a man, and I'm not Politically Correct, and even I dislike the fact that your company apparently thinks the best alternative to choose, at the end of the game, is to lie to the woman.
A relationship based upon a Big Lie is going to fail, and at least one person will be unhappy with it. Or, if you're saying that's okay because it's just a one-night stand and the guy will have sex, then I'm offended as a Christian -- someone who believes that sex outside of marriage is a bad idea...like eating too much candy.
Congratulations, though, on an ad campaign that actually makes me agree with Poltiically Correct femocrats about something! I'm putting this on my blog! (Oh, yeah, obviously your ad wizards don't know much about blogging, either.)
Friday, November 14, 2008
Burn Notice
I just posted this conundrum at www.safercampus.org in response to a post entitled "Stealth Conservatives At It Again":
Ashley:
I'm very curious what would persuade you that FIRE is not "a far right organization." I see they have defended (among others) Ward Churchill, as well as a professor who posted an anti-religious cartoon on his office door, and a student who was expelled from school for his environmental activism.
Alternatively, maybe you consider defending free speech for all to be a "far right" viewpoint. Does that mean you think that the "left-wing" viewpoint should be in favor of censorship or political inequality?
Or, you might say something like "Yes, they defend free speech for everyone equally, which is a Good Thing, but they are still mostly right-wing in the rest of their lives." In that case, I would suggest that you should be glad that you and they agree on at least some things, such as freedom of speech and equal legal rights. (I also suggest the same things to my right-wing friends when we discuss the ACLU!)
[Oh, when I say I posted it, I mean I tried to post it, but apparently they didn't accept it. Apparently they are biased against logic and the truth.]
Ashley:
I'm very curious what would persuade you that FIRE is not "a far right organization." I see they have defended (among others) Ward Churchill, as well as a professor who posted an anti-religious cartoon on his office door, and a student who was expelled from school for his environmental activism.
Alternatively, maybe you consider defending free speech for all to be a "far right" viewpoint. Does that mean you think that the "left-wing" viewpoint should be in favor of censorship or political inequality?
Or, you might say something like "Yes, they defend free speech for everyone equally, which is a Good Thing, but they are still mostly right-wing in the rest of their lives." In that case, I would suggest that you should be glad that you and they agree on at least some things, such as freedom of speech and equal legal rights. (I also suggest the same things to my right-wing friends when we discuss the ACLU!)
[Oh, when I say I posted it, I mean I tried to post it, but apparently they didn't accept it. Apparently they are biased against logic and the truth.]
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