March 2012
Help me out here, guys
It’s no secret that Tumblr lacks non-libertarian conservatives. It’s a bit exciting to find a genuine conservative post. What a treat for #Politics!
Except … I still don’t know what “politics” even means. Take a post like this: Status Report on the Global Warming Hoax.1 It’s obviously conservative. That post, at least, strings sentences together...
1 tag
“I long for the days when I could be conservative because I was an elitist....”
– Matt, who doesn’t want to tell Google his last name.
February 2012
Does government hurt the poor?
LA Liberty has responded to my request that somebody explain the too-common assertion that government efforts intended to assist the poor cause more harm than good or that efforts to assist the poor have generally had the opposite effect.
Minimum wage laws ostensibly exist to offer poorer workers better pay, but tend to leave the lower-skilled workers unemployed instead.
[Citation...
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The personal, the political
prettayprettaygood:
Why are “beauty” related posts about celebrities being featured on the Politics page? Something or someone is screwing up here.
While it’s certainly possible that this was an error (and I have no idea why or how specific posts were promoted), let’s assume it wasn’t.
Politics, read broadly, is an awfully wide category. On the other hand, such a broad...
4 tags
Democratic shenanigans in Michigan?
Michigan has an open primary. While you can’t vote in both parties’ primaries, there is nothing to stop you from voting in a primary you care about rather than one where the results are foreordained. For example, in 2008 I cast a Republican ballot for John McCain because I thought he was a generally decent guy and I really don’t like Mitt Romney. (As you may recall, Obama...
2 tags
On Afghanistan
Political Prof and I disagree on Afghanistan. Political Prof thinks the U.S. has no business maintaining a continued military presence in Afghanistan.1 I think it is a much more difficult issue.2
I would first highlight the tension between PoliticalProf’s first two paragraphs. I say “tension” rather than “contradiction” because I mostly agree with these first two...
A simple question
politicalprof:
squashed:
politicalprof:
Can anyone offer me a serious answer to the question: why are we still in Afghanistan?
I believe the concern is that as much as it sucks to be in Afghanistan the alternative is worse. When climbing over a mountain, you can’t just cut the ropes and bail half-way down the far face—no matter how bad an idea the entire expedition was. Even if that works...
A simple question
alsson:
squashed:
politicalprof:
Can anyone offer me a serious answer to the question: why are we still in Afghanistan?
I believe the concern is that as much as it sucks to be in Afghanistan the alternative is worse. When climbing over a mountain, you can’t just cut the ropes and bail half-way down the far face—no matter how bad an idea the entire expedition was. Even if that works okay...
A simple question
politicalprof:
Can anyone offer me a serious answer to the question: why are we still in Afghanistan?
I believe the concern is that as much as it sucks to be in Afghanistan the alternative is worse. When climbing over a mountain, you can’t just cut the ropes and bail half-way down the far face—no matter how bad an idea the entire expedition was. Even if that works okay for you, it...
“We often try to fight problems by yelling at them instead of accepting the...”
– Marco
Marco’s whole article is worth a read. A well-placed trash can can do more to reduce litter than increasingly sanctimonious “Do Not Litter” signs. iTunes did more to reduce digital piracy than a decade of litigation.
There is a legal convention that it is inexcusably...
1 tag
So I'm working on my taxes ...
A few things lined up that made this a bad year on the tax front. As I’m looking at what I’ll probably end up owing, I wondered briefly whether I would be better off with a Republican President.
Then I thought about the Republicans. Ugh. It made me feel a lot better about the tax situation.
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“Rick Santorum might be feeling good about his rise in the polls. But he’s...”
– John Oliver, The Daily Show
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What is political?
“What is political?” question is a bit like “what is art?” If a currator puts a worn-out boot on a pedestal in a gallery, the boot is art. We treat it as art. And (with a few exceptions) we’re not too concerned when something of ours is treated as art. Similarly, if I slap a political tag on something, it becomes political, even if it wasn’t intended as such.
...
huskerred:
Raising taxes on certain categories of people to pay for our egregious spending habits in Washington only passes the buck to future generations.
Technically raising revenue pays for the spending we’re doing now—which eliminates the need to pass the buck to future generations. Any budget has two sides. Money in. Money out. Taxes are low now. A more progressive tax...
huskerred:
fralcon:
As a general rule, wealth buys political influence. If a country is having fiscal problems, the blame likely lies with the corporations and individuals who benefited the most from its policies. Don’t blame the public worker who has the unmitigated gall to be in the middle class. Look at the businesses and individuals connected to government officials. This is why austerity...
3 tags
When vote for Santorum isn't a vote for Santorum
Curiously, a vote for Rick Santorum is the upcoming primaries is a vote for anybody other than Santorum or Romney. It’s a vote to keep the race going long enough to force a brokered convention and let the GOP choose a candidate who is less of a disaster. If Santorum wins in Michigan, he’s still a bitter, bitter pill for the GOP to swallow. If the GOP isn’t willing to grumble and...
To catch a predatory lender.
So housing prices are low. But credit is tight. When people can’t get financing from a reputable source, they sometimes turn to less conventional—and generally predatory—options.
A lot of the scuzzy mortgage brokers turned into foreclosure rescue scammers, but now that game is running dry too. I’d love to get ahead of the next mess before it turns critical. Things have...
I keep hearing that government is bad
huskerred writes:
Government has traditionally been the cause of misery and suffering far more than a helpful hand for those in need. Why trust it now?
Would you mind elaborating on this? “Traditionally?” Are we talking 18th-century traditionally? Or are we talking about some sort of dogma embedded in conservative tradition. E.g. “Santa Claus traditionally wears...
2 tags
Citizens United did not put our Presidential...
A few things we can learn from 2011 campaign disclosures:
Obama spent more money than any other Presidential candidate.
Obama has more money in the bank than any other Presidential candidate raised.
Obama raised more money from large donors than any other Presidential candidate raised from all sources.
Obama raised more money from small donors than any other Presidential candidate raised from...
1 tag
Third Party Candidate
As an unrepentant Obama supporter, I find all this talk of third party candidates and brokered Republican conventions encouraging. It’s not just that this is great news for my candidate.
Republican efforts to draw a coherent contrast to Obama have resulted in electable parody. The Republicans are sure they don’t like Obama. But they’re having trouble figuring out exactly why....
Watch
Santorum aide decries Obama’s ‘radical Islamic policies.’
Raw Story:
Appearing on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, [Santorum aide Alice] Stewart continued the Santorum campaign’s efforts to clarify his statements over the weekend that he wasn’t questioning Obama’s Christian faith.
“He wasn’t questioning the president’s character, he wasn’t questioning the president’s...
5 tags
Clean Coal: Not a Thing
The coal companies are lying to you. Coal energy is not clean energy. It is the dirtiest form of energy generation we have. The coal companies are spending millions of dollars hoping you’ll forget this. A slick ad campaign doesn’t change the truth.
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCE) is really a conglomeration of a lot of companies that make money selling dirty...
3 tags
Due Process and Positive Rights
Huskerred responded to my previous post on the rhetoric of rights1:
[I]t seems that Squashed has missed the key distinction between positive and negative rights.
The Bill of Rights, for instance, is comprised primarily of negative rights. These rights are limiting rights. The state cannot, for instance, arbitrarily impose a nation religion or ban the free press. Along the same lines, the...
5 tags
Rights are not free
My conservative friends tell me that something cannot be a right if it imposes a cost on somebody else. They recognize a rights to speech, religion, and weapons for those who can afford them. They deny rights to food, shelter, and healthcare for those who can’t pay for them. The “right to life” is limited to a right not to be killed.1 While they believe it would be awfully nice...
3 tags
“[The left wants] to impose [that] on everybody else while they insist and...”
– Rick Santorum.
Santorum, stick a sock in it. This schtick is disgusting. Rick, let’s be blunt. You’re a Republican Catholic. That’s a lot like a Roman Catholic—except that the political needs of the Republican Party call the ultimate shots instead of Rome. You do not...
1 tag
“The senator believes Romney will ultimately win in Michigan but says he will...”
– Pfft. (via rustbelts)
While watching a brokered Republican National Convention would be great sport, selecting somebody who didn’t go through the primaries would be another way to guarantee a catastrophic loss. In addition to the logistical problems of organizing a national campaign in the...
The Human Library →
A Human Library is just that—a library where the “books” are living people who volunteer to share their stories with “readers”—members of the community.
…
Structured to mimic real library browsing, participants would search the card catalog, apply for a library card, and then check out one of the 35 books as they became available. The book titles, chosen by the “books” themselves,...
1 tag
Tumblr's #Politics tag just got a lot more boring.
Admittedly, Tumblr had a problem. Some of the editors had some controversial views and the #Politics wasn’t living up to its potential. (There were also some truly great editors. So Tumblr did some kind of refresh of the editors.
The result? Thirteen editors were removed. Others were added, including myself. But for some reason, the powers that be decided to add myself and a bunch of other...
2 tags
Santorum is in a very good position to win the...
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s defection is significant. DeWine isn’t a fringe character or a guy who wants to register a protest endorsement as his political future washes away. His flip may be the beginning of a broader, anti-Romney defection by establishment Republicans.
the-quiet1-has-a-new-blog asked: So, what are your plans on promoting? Will it just be posts you agree with, or will you try to get a balance of well-written posts from different views? While I'm glad to see you personally as an editor, as someone who's enjoyed your blog, I can't help but think the Politics tag will become overwhelmingly liberal now, where there used to be LA Liberty and Alex Holzbach to round out...
1 tag
Politics
So … it looks like Tumblr just refreshed its Politics editors, probably after the dispute over Ryking. Suddenly I’m an editor.
This is a bit awkward.
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Mitt Romney and the Republican Party are that...
Mitt wants to get married, but the GOP is all, “Marriage is sort of an antiquated institution.” And Mitt’s like, “Yeah. We’re happy with what we have.” He sighs because he’s not happy.
And the GOP says, “We’re actually in an open relationship.” And Mitt says, “At least for now.” The GOP didn’t hear him, because it...
2 tags
Loan modifications
Slackjot replied to my post on predatory lending
To avoid foreclosures, banks are having people do ‘remods’ of their mortgages in which the bank capitalizes the interest, adding it to the borrower’s principal. That pushes them even further underwater. How does that help?
A home provides the same quality of shelter whether or not its underwater. Being underwater in mortgage debt is a problem...
Before I started working in poverty law, I wasn't...
You see things. It changes you.
I know. Shit happens. But it happens for a reason.
When you see what’s happening—and why it’s happening, explanations like, “That’s just how it is” sound awfully inadequate.
5 tags
Let's stop blaming the victims of predatory...
This is important.
The primary cause of the subprime collapse—which heralded in the Great Recession was bad loans not bad borrowers. At the peak of the subprime boom lenders structured loans in a way that virtually guaranteed that those loans would fail because it was profitable. Borrowers—particularly minority borrowers—were steered toward these designed-to-fail loans even...
“I think Facebook is colossally dull. I think it’s like everyone coming to live...”
– Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, opining on the worth of certain technologies in Capital New York. (via tragos)
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Obama's "Super PAC Reversal"
The Obama administration has insisted, from the beginning, that it dislikes the way that Super PACs pump unlimited and unaccountable money into elections.
The Obama administration states that since Super PACs are now an unavoidable thing it will encourage donations to its own Super PAC.
How is this a reverse of position? He said he didn’t like Super PACs. He still says he doesn’t...
diddilyday asked: We've failed as feminists if we're now arguing that others whose shoes we've never been in don't face discrimination. There's a difference between feminism and pseudo-feminism. I hope you jump ship from the latter and swim on over to the former.
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Misandry?
I mean, I guess it’s a thing, even if it’s not a particularly widespread problem. But most things labeled “misandry” are really just people playing that “[my gender] rules, [your gender] drools” game. And if you didn’t get over that in third grade, I suppose a word like misandry might come in useful. But other than that? Widespread and systemic fear of or...
1 tag
I buy and play Fallout: New Vegas, will I get to...
I might kind of like that.
2 tags
The RNC is confusing me again.
Hey RNC Research. It’s me again. Since it looks like I’m one of the only people who actually reads your blog, I was wondering if you could clear something up for me. You’re upset with some statements by White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew.
**Lew Tries To Dodge Answering For Obama’s Failed Promise To Cut The Deficit In Half
While the deficit wasn’t cut in half, it...
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Are we 100% sure Romney said he was "severely...
That could explain the testy and anxious nature of his campaign lately.