Mostly politics today, I’m afraid:
Category Archives: Politics
Weekend Linkorama
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Snowbound LInkorama
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Epistemic Closure Watch
Two examples — one from the Right, one from the Left — are indicative of one of the biggest problems in politics today — the refusal to withdraw bogus arguments from the debate.
First, the Right. Hot Air approvingly posted video of two senators ganging up on Barbara Boxer on the subject of “global cooling”, getting her to admit this was a theory in the 1970’s.
This is a perfect example of what I’ve come to call the Global Cooling Acid Test. In the 1970’s, global warming theory was maturing. For a brief period, however, the existing data indicating a potential cooling trend. Some scientists thought this might be due to aerosols in the air. The alternative theory grabbed some headlines because of a potential Ice Age. But it was never consensus science. Global warming theory was much more widely accepted.
This point is so clear and so well-documented that there is no reason to keep bringing it up. And frankly, even if global cooling had been consensus science, we’ve had 40 more years of data — including all of the satellite data — to support global warming theory. Using global cooling to debunk global warming — even if global cooling had been consensus, which it wasn’t — is like using the failure of the ether theory to debunk relativity. Or the nebular theory to debunk Galactic evolution. Old theories are replaced by better ones when better data come about.
There are legitimate criticisms of AGW theory — the quality of the temperature data, the dendrochronology data and the ability of models to predict the future. And, indeed, these are the criticisms real skeptics focus on. But global cooling is not a legitimate criticism.
(Nor, it seems is Climategate, which even James Inhofe’s requested investigation has concluded does not debunk climate change, although it does show arrogance, presumption and sloppy work on the part of key climate scientists — enough, in my opinion, to warrant hesitation on economy-changing carbon schemes.)
I find the use of Time and Newsweek covers to “prove” that global cooling was consensus to be particularly hilarious. These magazines have a long history of panic-mongering cover stories that turn out to be complete garbage (or maybe I missed the great Pokemon massacres of the last decade).
The global cooling thing does brush against something more germane — the 1970’s and 80’s panic about overpopulation, which was (a) consensus science; (b) the source of numerous and sometimes horrific proposals for changing human society; (c) as early as 1980, obviously wrong. In fact, it’s a big reason why I remain skeptical of long-term climate projections.
But it’s a little harder to draw the connection between people extrapolating population growth and a scientific theory now supported by the preponderance of evidence. Moreover, it’s not on the list of talking points and global cooling is.
In the AGW debate, the mention of global cooling is a sign that someone isn’t paying attention — that they have a list of talking points they like to run through and no amount of debunking is going to pull things off that list.
The Left is not immune to this, however. Charles Johnson, reasonably bashing Republicans for including poison control centers in their list of budget cuts (although it behooves me to point out that PCC’s were not federally funded until 2000), has his list of items in the Republican Party’s “War on Women”. Here’s the list
Trying to defund Planned Parenthood
Trying to redefine rape to deny abortion funding
Trying to pass laws that would require investigations of all miscarriages
Trying to pass laws that would legalize killing abortion providers
Trying to define ‘human life’ to begin with a fetal heartbeat
Calling two fetuses as ‘witnesses’ to anti-abortion hearings
Trying to pass laws to outlaw federal funds for contraceptives
Trying to pass laws that would allow hospital ERs to let women die rather than provide abortions.
Some of these are true — the GOP has tried to cut PP’s funding and one legislature wants to outlaw abortion if a fetal heartbeat is detected (and did indeed call two fetuses as “witnesses”). They have tried to cut family planning and birth control plans for poor people. And their proposal would have taken the conscience provision that allows federally funded hospitals to refuse to provide abortions and extended it to refusing to provide them in emergency situations. I’m opposed to most of this, to varying degrees. Almost all of it is unlikely to become law; but it does represent bones being thrown to an increasingly influential and deranged radical religious wing of the Party.
But others are wild exaggerations. For example, the GOP did not try to “redefine rape” — they tried to change what the federal government would fund abortions for. Rape, the crime, is defined by state law. Rape, what the government will pay for an abortion for, is defined by the feds. I thought was really stupid and offensive, but it was not “redefining rape”. And it’s ridiculous and inflammatory to keep referring to it as such. “Tried to cut abortion funding for rape victims” is perfectly accurate and conveys what they tried to do. We can do without the bullshit.
The miscarriage law is indeed real and is indeed stupid. On the other hand, it is not exactly a GOP party platform plank. It’s being proposed by one stupid Georgia state senator who has tried and failed to get abortion outlawed at every session. Branding it as part of a GOP “war on women” is the flip side of Republicans insisting that AGW theory is a plot to destroy capitalism. Yes, there are some people using AGW to advance statist ideas. And yes there is at least one Republican who wants to outlaw miscarriage. But every party has their ignorant dipshits; do we need to let them define the debate?
Finally, we get to what provoked this post — the charge that Republicans want to legalize the killing of abortion doctors. This is the sort of claim that is a litmus test for partisan derangement. People who hear it and immediately say, “Oh my God, we’ve got to stop this!” have failed. Success is earned by saying, “really?!” and then finding out, as one blogger did, that this is simply not true. (And even it were, the likelihood that it would pass the legislature and be accepted by the Courts is zero.)
But I guarantee you that it will continue to show up in “War on Women” posts just as global cooling continues to show up on “Global Warming is false” posts. Because the people who write these posts do not care about the debate — they care about bashing “the enemy”.
The difference between rational debate and demagoguery is that the rational debaters — and there are many — will admit when an argument they have used is bogus. I know these arguments intimately with global warming because I used to make many of them myself. But the demagogue really doesn’t give a shit. He has his list of talking points and he will stick to them. No matter what.
Mathematical Malpractice: Wisconsin Edition
Even Paul Krugmann has fallen for the canard that Wisconsin students, thanks to their unionized teachers, outperform everyone. Iowahawk above demonstrates that this is a result of mathematical malpractice — mostly failing to account for differences in testing regime and minority enrollment. Even the author of the studies Krugman references admits that the wrong point is being extracted from them, according to Factcheck.org.
At what point does continually presenting the wrong facts cross the line into deliberate deception?
Mostly Politics Linkorama
Sorry. Politics on the brain this week.
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Tuesday Linkorama
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Koch Derangement Syndrome
Now that George W. Bush is no longer in office, the Left needs a villain. As noted by many, mass movements can succeed without a God, but never without a devil. The Republicans have their devil in Obama but the Left is desperately scrounging around for theirs. For a while, Sarah Palin was filling that role but she’s gotten so silly even the Left is having trouble getting worked up over her. Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain come in for racist invective, but they’re not mainstream enough. Romney, Daniels, Christie, Nikki Haley, Jindal, Pawlenty — these guys are too bland and/or too competent. No, they need someone who feeds the conspiracy-addled brains and open-ended paranoia that comprise the base of any political movement.
They need the Koch brothers.
I’ve addressed the Left’s obsession with Koch before. Suffice it to say that this the screaming about them is the rankest sort of hypocrisy. The Koch Brothers do not conceal what they do — the infamous webs of “corruption” that are drawn up like Jim Garrison on meth are the result of looking at public disclosures and statements from Koch industries. And, of course, the people who vilify the Kochs have no problem with George Soros or any of the other millionaires and billionaires who frequently fund Left Wing causes, including the ones currently hyperventilating about the Kochs.
The Koch Brothers have come in for some more bashing because of the juvenile prank pulled on Wisconsin Governor Walker last week (which, as I’ve pointed out, was meaningless). Supposedly, the fight between Republicans and unions in Wisconsin is a result of the evil influence of Koch.
Except … Walker and the Kochs have never met. Except … that the money they donate to politics is dwarfed by what unions contribute. Except … that even the supposed dirty deal to sell power plants to the Kochs is not happening.
And the ultimate joke is that Kochs support numerous causes that the Left hold near and dear (supposedly). The Kochs are anti-war, anti-torture, anti-war-on-drugs and anti-Patriot Act. They’ve donated tens of millions to science and the arts and the largest recipient of their political largesse, by far, is that notorious Right Wing Fascist organization — the ACLU. They given the eeeevil ACLU $20 million — more than they’ve contributed to all political candidates combined — specifically to fight the Patriot Act.
Now it is true that the Kochs have almost exclusively supported Republicans for office, mostly to fight climate change legislation that would affect heir energy interests. To the Left, their failure to support Left Wing candidates to support their more liberal agenda on social issues and civil liberties is a glaring problem. If they really want to fight the Patriot Act and stop the war, why don’t fund Democrats?
Well, probably because the Democrats don’t oppose the War, haven’t done anything about the Patriot Act, keep ramping up the war on crime and have no interest in pulling back the war on drugs. As I’ve said about a million times, the idea that the Democrats are some bastion of sanity on crime and civil liberties is complete bullshit. Their record on civil liberties — all civil liberties — is terrible. And they have not just embraced the excesses of the War on Terror, they’ve expanded them. Glenn Greenwald has a new piece up about how the Obama Administration is tracking down and jailing every whistle blower they can get their hands on. They want to look “forward not backward” when it comes to things the Bush people did. But they’re digging up whistle blowers from five years ago to throw in prison.
If I want to support free markets, I might fund Republicans (although their support for farm subsidies, tariffs, ethanol, etc. belies their supposed free-market credentials). But if I want to support civil liberties, I’m not giving a penny to either party. I’ll give them to people with an unwavering interest in liberty and an army of lawyers to fight in the courts.
A number of people are speculating that this whole Koch business is, in fact, a dress rehearsal for 2012. The campaign against them, like the protests in Wisconsin, had benefited from White House support. And the Democrats simply luuuv to play the “we’re standing up against evil rich people” card even as they sell the country completely down the river to their particular groups of rich people.
We’ll see. This sort of thing plays well among people who obsess over politics. But among the general public — the vast majority of whom never watch Fox News and wouldn’t know a continuing resolution if they fell over one — this is just more Washington insider bullshit. It might rally the “base”, but it won’t help much with the ballot box.
HST Deadline Linkorama
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Sunday Linkorama
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Fiscal Responsibility Check
Here’s a litmus test for whether someone is serious about balancing the budget. If they are waging war on small budget items that are not popular, they’re not serious. If everything is on the table, they are.
For example, here is Alan Simpson talking about cutting entitlements and defense spending. Alan Simpson is serious about the debt, as attested by the ambitious Simpson-Bowles plan. Here is Reason Magazine, who put everything on the table. They’re serious. Paul Ryan is holding true to his roadmap. He’s serious.
And Obama? Well Obama punted debt in his ridiculous State of the Union address. His OMB is publishing ridiculous op-eds, crowing about cutting less than a billion in spending. And he and his minions are running around promising $53 billion in high-speed rail spending that will, hopefully, never happen with a Republican Congress (although despair springs eternal). Cato brilliantly compared Joe Biden to Lyle Langley of Marge vs. the Monorail when it comes to flogging this ridiculous boondoggle.
And the Republicans? Meh. We’ll see if this $74 billion cut in spending for 2011 materializes. What really concerns me is that are currently burning their political capital to attack pet peeves that don’t cost that much. They got burned recently for trying to cut abortion funding by redefining rape. Now they are trying to cut family planning funds — again under the abortion aegis. The latter attempt may be the stupidest excuse for a budget cut in history. The vast majority of conservatives think that keeping poor people from unwanted pregnancies is a good thing. And the savings would be very small ($327 million). Those cuts aren’t being proposed because they’ll save us money — they’re being proposed to placate the anti-abortion part of the party.
The GOP is also trying to placate the anti-AGWers by cutting off funds for climate research. Because the best way to deal with or disprove global warming hysteria, apparently, is to stop doing research on it.
They are also proposing cutting NPR and PBS off. While I support that — if nothing else it would infuriate the smug liberals posting in my facebook feed about Republicans “hating facts” — the savings are small and the backlash would be strong.
And that brings met to the critical point. Some or all of the above cuts could be justified. The problem is that the Republicans have a limited amount of political capital to spend. They have to target their budget cuts were they will make the most difference. Cutting the above could produce a knock-down drag-out budget battle that would save … a few billion. At most. I would much rather them burn that capital to attack, say, farm and ethanol subsidies, which are ten times as big as all the Republican pet peeves put together.
The Republicans need to make up their mind. Do they want to cause a furor by cutting their pet hatreds — climate research, abortion, birth control and PBS — and save a few billion? Or do they want to cause a furor by tackling the really big problems — entitlements, defense and corporate welfare — and save trillions? My fear is that they still think the former option is the best one. Granted, the above are mostly small parts of a larger budget effort. The attention to them is the classic “stop $74 billion in budget cuts by whining about 1% of it” tactic. But if the GOP is already foundering in the political shoals, we’re in trouble.
Thursday Long-Form Linkorama
Honestly, I sometimes think a least a third of the people in his country need to be kept away from policy, blogs and heavy equipment.
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