Scoopy’s First Law of the Universe is this: No matter how stupid any idea is, there will be many people who believe it, and even take credit for it.
Apparently, Trump, Mike Flynn and JFK Jr are all closely related (biologically). Per this belief system, Mike Flynn is JFK’s nephew, and Donald Trump is the biological son of General Patton.
“General Patton is the grandson of Abraham Lincoln. All right. General Patton had a brother which was Benito Mussolini as well who came — so General Patton was the son of William Wallace Lincoln. Benito Mussolini was the son of Thomas “Tad” Lincoln, all right? Joseph Kennedy, the older brother of John F. Kennedy, presumed dead in World War II, was not dead. He went into hiding for protection. He had children. Joseph Kennedy begat General Michael Flynn who happens to be first cousins to John-John and his siblings as well. Trump is the biological son of General Patton which makes him first cousins to John-John and the Kennedys as well. It`s all about the blood line. It`s all about the blood line.”
I think this fits here as well. I’m not trying to defend myself, but to tell what I thought was an amusing thing I saw on the television news.
Not only have I never said that a person does not need a degree (or higher) to comment on economics, I have said a number of times that one only needs to have the logic to be able to ‘follow the money’ from beginning to end (in academia, this is referred to as first order effects, second order effects and so on. An incomplete analysis, which is most cases, is referred to as partial equilibrium, while a complete analysis is referred to as general equilibrium. As long as a partial equilibrium is seen through far enough, it’s good enough, because the effects tend to get smaller and smaller.)
I have also said that the problem most people have with economics is that there are so many false complications and conspiracy theories that the biggest challenge most people have is, to misquote Yoda, ‘unlearn’ the wrong things.
In regards to the most frequent example sited politically from the right is that either ‘tax cuts pay for themselves’ or that ‘tax cuts are inherently good for the economy.’ Well, ‘follow the money’, what happens after that? To know if ‘tax cuts pay for themselves or if ‘tax cuts are inherently good’ you have to know where the money for these tax cuts comes from and what are the consequences that flow from that.
So, back to the anecdote. The only political debate I’ve ever seen where anybody has specifically said that unless you’re an expert you shouldn’t comment is over guns. Specifically, you can only comment if you can tell a military style assault rifle from a semi automatic, to a semi automatic with so many rounds per minute, to a different semi automatic with a different number of rounds per minute.
So, it seems that this line of thinking is so entrenched with at least some of the second amendment absolutists that they don’t even think what it means anymore. I saw this one second amendment absolutist being first interviewed on guns replying “we need to stick to people who actually know about guns to comment on gun laws” and who was then asked about Covid giving an absolutist nutty conspiracy theory response.
I guess guns are the only issue where only a person who knows everything there is to know about every gun ever made can comment.
The thread on the Virginia election closed as I was typing this. However, I like to believe that the JFK (Jr) reference makes this fit here as well:
In regards to Richard Posner, I read about him today because I was given a link to a book review that he wrote in The New Republic in 1997 during the early days of ‘CRT’ that he wrote about “Beyond All Reason” by Daniel Farber and Suzanna Sherry, on ‘CRT’ as it was theorized at the time.
I looked him up on wiki, not because I was all that curious about him per se, but because other than the article referred to him as ‘Chief Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, I wondered about his name, as in, is he also the guy who wrote the book about the Kennedy Assassination that backed up the Warren Commission Findings. No, it turns, that was Gerald Posner, who is of no relation.
However, I found the wiki alarming because it said this about him: he was identified by The Journal of Legal Studies as the most cited legal scholar of the 20th century. The article is terrible. First of all, ‘it rests on the logical fallacy that absence of evidence is evidence of absence’ and then, given that it posits this, it then is backed up not with logic or facts, but with assertions backed by ridicule. In this four (not full) page article, I counted seven such comments such as:
“They have plenty of goofy ideas and irresponsible dicta.”
“These theorists are not talented storytellers.”
“Critical race theorists teach by example that the role of a member of a minority group is to write childish stories…”
Disclosure: not that I pretend to be above making assertions by ridicule.
The key point of the article is this: which quotes from the book he is reviewing: “radical multiculturalism” aka more or less ‘CRT’ is a “paranoid mode of thought that sees behind every social institution nothing but the tracks of white supremacy and male oppression.”
Of course, today this is referred to as ‘systemic discrimination’ and its reality is not seriously debated in most academic fields, certainly not in economics, and is only really debated by people who deny its existence (similar to global warming or Covid.)
While the empirical evidence that systemic discrimination is real may not have existed in 1997, it certainly existed in the form of anecdotes from black people and other minorities in 1997. These are the ‘stories’ that Posner ridicules in his assertions. Ironically, it’s now parents (or alleged parents) in Virginia who have (alleged) anecdotal stories about the horrible things being taught to their children under the guise of CRT. What else should be said to them other than ‘get empirical evidence to back up your claims’?
So, when it came to the most marginal in society, from Judge Posner: unless you have empirical evidence to back up your claims, you’ll be ridiculed.
But, according to the wiki article, when it comes to the wealthy and powerful, from Judge Posner, assumptions are (or were) perfectly fine: “In A Failure of Capitalism, he has written that the 2008 financial crisis has caused him to question the rational-choice, laissez-faire economic model that lies at the heart of his law and economics theory.”
In regards to what I mentioned specifically though, this is what Posner said: I pay very little attention to legal rules, statutes, constitutional provisions,” Judge Posner said. “A case is just a dispute. The first thing you do is ask yourself—forget about the law—what is a sensible resolution of this dispute? The next thing, he said, was to see if a recent Supreme Court precedent or some other legal obstacle stood in the way of ruling in favor of that sensible resolution. “And the answer is that’s actually rarely the case,” he said. “When you have a Supreme Court case or something similar, they’re often extremely easy to get around.”
Of course, Posner said this after announcing his retirement, but he’s the only judge or justice I’ve ever heard say he pays little attention to legal rules, statutes or constitutional provisions.
The following reply in the same thread also got blocked by the unlucky closing of comments. Scoopy’s property, his rules. He says 1 rule—violators’ posts are deleted. Still, if Scoopy deletes this, then I broke the rules.
@MMcC: My belief that we must either fight climate change or adapt is not rooted in feelings of guilt. Not that I’m not due a share of the blame. But I see us adapting to storms, floods, fires & drought as extreme & full of sacrifice. Switching to new energy sources while our energy use still climbs seems mild in comparison. My point is. if we can only teach the truth in a way that blames the innocent, then truth is not the problem. Not being the guilty party does not spare us the need to understand our joint problems & all do what we can to help fix them.
While there are reasons to respect the work of folks like McWhorter, D’Souza & Niall Ferguson, I made a note to self to disregard them & change the channel if they appear on my screen. Skin color aside, they are vicious partisans. While that means they’re liars, partisans also deceive themselves. I don’t care if JM’s arguments are “criticisms on the merits”. That label by itself is as useful as my ad hominem attack. Either you’d kindly enumerate the specific arguments you’re persuaded by or you might do me the favor of shutting up about your “credible” source.
Meanwhile, Kendi’s stance strikes me as reasonable. When there’s imbalance, “neutral” action conserves the imbalance. In the same way that “net-zero” being a codeword for carbon offsets—IOW, bookkeeping tricks—only spreads the blame around while doing nothing to reduce atmospheric carbon.
In short, there’s pushback against redistribution of any kind because it can be terrible. There are many ways to do it badly & no ways to do it without costing someone. Whether the problem is income inequality, racial or class unequal opportunity, or the winners & losers in specific businesses. Conservatives are all in opposition to progress of one kind or another. I start from a libertarian place, but I merely want us to keep moving forward—to progress. Not perfection per se, but mere self-improvement. We are not yet our best selves.
The comments close on some pre-set schedule. I did set that time limit when I created the site, but I’ll be damned if I can remember what the setting is! Anyway, you guys always seem to resume elsewhere, so no harm done there.
I don’t think I’ve ever deleted a post, but I have deleted some users, which automatically removes their posts. I don’t do that because of content, but because of sock puppetry. Diverse opinions are fine, but don’t hide behind multiple usernames. Take responsibility for your posts.
There is one other automatic thing built into the software: “hold for approval.”
Thanks.
For the last paragraph:
1.That is one of the major debates in economics: to what extent can redistribution contribute in a way so that it doesn’t cost anyone in the longer term. I know it’s a fairly trite saying, but it’s also mostly true that the economy isn’t a ‘zero sum game.’
2.If this is of any interest to you in further research and you aren’t already aware of it, the concept of ‘doing something without costing anybody, or, specifically, without making anybody else worse off’ in economics is referred to as pareto optimality/pareto efficiency.
Thanks, you’re always helpful. I do know about pareto optimal. AKA a set of “non-inferior” solutions. In some sense the very absence of clearly “superior” solutions may result in a large set of non-inferior alternatives. Politics & everyday life tend to be full of such dubious optimality. That’s a thing kids don’t learn for many decades. Once they do, they may gain a new respect for their parents.
Then there’s the pareto principal. This is when a school admin rises to headmaster, where he or she is overwhelmed. Oh, wait, that’s the Peter Principle. Pareto Principle is the 80/20 law & other laws with the same 80/20 feature. Like, 20% of patients consume 80% of healthcare cost. I like the 90/10 law of project completion: the last 10% of a project takes the second 90% of the time.
BTW, Adam, I’m cheered by your carrying the banner against the nefarious conservative conspiracy referred to by its original perpetrators as the Law & Econ plan. Their goal was to cloak fascist intent in superficially respectable intellectual clothing. You’ve elaborated the role of the Federalist Society in said plan, with examples of conservative legal “principles”.
On the econ side, you did mention Hayek. Let’s broaden it to the Austrian School. Here’s a fairly detailed historical take:
hetwebsite . net / het / schools / austrian . htm
And here’s more of an assassination attempt:
rationalwiki . org / wiki / Austrian _ school
BTW, Adam, non-zero sum often equals confounded. When the space of possibilities grows or shrinks, we can’t directly impute particular outputs uniquely to prior input components. One thing “grew”, but where did the growth come from? Or shrank, but where did the loss go to? If the space is smaller, maybe what was lost just vanished? Identification of variables is already tough enough under zero-sum. Related: nonlinear evolution. Extrapolating produces an error. Maybe we have a good basis for error bars, or maybe we’re just making stuff up.
Again, the truth is we barely go anyplace in life where we don’t have to make choices with no clear right answers. The sooner our kids know this, the sooner they can switch from childish things to being a full-fledged human.
@MMcC: “you are actually making an argument for school choice.”
I am saying it’s debatable. There are pros/cons. I understand that parents might not always see their child’s assigned school as the best possible. They feel forced to look elsewhere for solutions. That leads to a market demand for out-of-system alternatives. The systemic problems are real. Fixes are blocked. That’s what I said. Congrats, you received my data & regurgitated it error-free.
I benefitted from atypical classes, whether under the rubric of “alternative schools” or not. It’s clear that improvements along the same lines won’t be spread widely any time soon. There’s a logjam. Practical solutions will be necessarily limited in scope. Non-universal. Inherently unfair. Parents aren’t to blame for that. Still, as they pull their child out, they should feel some twinge of regret. This is Greek tragedy—the need to kill the family goat for food. It’s bad, but it’s our way.
Plenty of judges like Posner but won’t admit it.
I think Posner said one pragmatic thing that comes in handy when considering legal mumbo-jumbo: “The first thing you do is ask yourself — forget about the law — what is a sensible resolution of this dispute? The next thing … is to see if a recent Supreme Court precedent or some other legal obstacle stood in the way of ruling in favor of that sensible resolution. And the answer is that’s actually rarely the case.”
So I apply that rule to certain recent questions:
RE: Trump/Eastman’s contention that a vice-president can determine which electors to accept or reject.
Obviously not sensible. If it were true, it would mean that power would never change hands in the USA if there was a corrupt administration. They would have the legal authority to retain power forever. If Pence could do it in 2020, he can also do it in 2024, 2028 and so forth, and his successors as V.P. can continue to do it. If Kamala Harris runs for president in 2024, she would, as vice-president, be able to throw out any state’s slate of electors that didn’t vote for her, then declare herself president on her own authority. It’s obvious that the founders of our republic did not have that in mind, if for no other reason than that they were not complete morons.
RE: Executive privilege being applied by a former president.
Obviously not sensible. Since (by existing policy and procedure) a federal indictment can’t be brought against a sitting President, it means the only time a president can be held criminally accountable is after his term. If he has the ability to keep his crimes secret indefinitely, it means that any president is free to commit any crimes he chooses, and Congress can never investigate him. Once again, the founding fathers could not have intended for any man to be above the law for any crimes committed while president. This is also why the two-term limit makes sense. If a man’s time in office is not limited, and he cannot be criminally prosecuted while in office, then he is allowed to commit any crimes he likes as long as he holds power – including the crime of using criminal vote fraud to hold on to power in the first place! Congress would have the option to impeach him, but as we have seen, it is essentially impossible to get a 2/3 vote in the senate no matter how egregious the president’s crimes. If the President has a powerful hold on his party, given his freedom from criminal prosecution while in office, he would essentially be above the law unless (1) he would eventually be required to leave office, and (2) his criminal behavior can be investigated and prosecuted after his terms.
Good to see they have free time when not accusing Dems of eating babies! 😛 As always, multitasking is the key! Indeed, true diehard Trump supporters. 😮
“No one in this world, so far as I know … has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.” ~ H.L. Mencken
Seriously, you can’t make this shit up! And so it goes …