UPDATE: Scroll to the bottom of this post for what Lauren Landsburg has to say.
I’ve been temporarily banned a number of times, but this one was the last straw. In this thread about James Hansen’s call for putting global warming denying oil executives on trial I assuaged Arnold Kling’s fears for his freedom by saying “The difference between oil executives and Kling is that Kling doesn’t matter. Also, he has less money.” This was ruled ad hominem, and since it was directed at the host and I had been repeatedly warned, I was banished forever.
I don’t see how noting that Kling has less money than an oil executive would merit that, as he has discussed high CEO pay and oil company profits on his blog. So the ad hominem part was that oil company executives matter and Kling does not. If carbon emissions cause warming, then the work oil executives do has a large impact on that warming. These executives have also been in the spotlight when Congress feels it ought to Do Something and they provide funding to people that spread their desired message. So we can say they matter. Does Arnold Kling matter on this issue? Is James Hansen aware of his existence? If he was, would it be worth his time to concern himself with Kling? My guess is no.
In some ways this reminds me of conversations I repeatedly have with Mencius Moldbug and Hopefully Anonymous. The former is talking about overthrowing the current system of government throughout the First World, a plan which now involves restoring the Stuarts. The latter wants to minimize existential risk and discover how to attain immortality, or something close to it. What I tell them is that you don’t matter, I don’t matter, and all the time we spend on the blogosphere will have no effect on the achievement of your goals. The latter at least will learn a few tips about common health and accident risks, but he’s not going to get a new Dr. Ishii cloning massive numbers of Aubrey de Grey and Nick Bostrum.
REPLY FROM LANDSBURG: I sent an e-mail when I found my comment was still up, here is the reply.
Hi, TGGP. > When I checked it out I saw that the comment I was > banned for was up. Is that a question? a complaint? a reminder? Yes, we left the comment up. Usually it isn't necessary to remove a comment altogether, even if it's the last straw or the final cause for permanently banning someone who has been warned repeatedly for crossing the line. A comment has to be exceptionally crude or disruptive to be removed. It was possible to interpret your EconLog comment in various ways, so taking it down didn't seem necessary. In fact, someone pointed out yesterday to me that you argue on your own blog that you intended it as illustrative. That argument seems perfectly reasonable. I probably picked the wrong comment of yours over which to ban you; but frankly, you've been gunning for getting banned for a long time. You've managed to drive your benefit/cost ratio for EconLog well below 1. Having to waste my time moderating someone does not exactly endear him to me. After someone receives multiple warnings, bans, and reinstatements, even a semblance of an infraction is enough to make it no longer worth my time to sort it out. Were you an iota as articulate and respectable on EconLog as you are on your own blog, almost surely you'd never have gotten moderated, much less banned. However, that's all water under the bridge. In your case, banning you doesn't mean I don't respect you as a thinker or as a writer. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, it does mean that you've not cottoned to EconLog's standards and style--not even after receiving two reprieves more than we give most commenters who violate the rules here. I look forward to continuing to enjoy reading your blog entries, as I have in the past. Best regards, Lauren
UPDATE 05/10/2021: It has been more than a decade since I was banned, and EconLog not only has a different moderator, but also a different commenting system. Scott Sumner now blogs both there and at his own personal blog, The Money Illusion (where I comment sometimes), and I wanted to reply to an EconLog comment of his and didn’t think the most recent TMI post was a good place for it, so I decided to test if I could comment again. I could.
Entitled to an Opinion 
June 25, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Getting banned from a climate change denial thread at all is pretty funny. Getting banned because of the content of your opinion on a hand-wringing thread about people getting prosecuted for the content of their opinions gives you double cred as a hero for our time.
June 25, 2008 at 4:49 pm
TGGP: Two or three years from now, when all the nations of the world have declared antinatalism the law of the land, specifically because of my blogging efforts, can I say I told you so? Or, will you ban me?
June 25, 2008 at 5:13 pm
I’ve seen you and Mencius debate incrementalism versus a complete reboot in the comments of UR. I think I’m beginning to to agree with Mencius.
In one way, it looks a lot harder to pass a major change. On the other hand, because of the structure of our government, I believe getting one anti-federalist Constitutional amendment passed would be far easier than passing 1,000 bills incrementally rolling back the government. The problem with our government is not specific policies, it’s the incentives of the governance structure that consistently produce those policies.
Also, it is clear that the Internet is the information source of the future. Broadcast media will continue to decline. Thus I think blogging is an effective way to promote change. At first it will be a small group tossing around ideas. But later I can imagine it evolving into an actual movement.
I’m noticing when talking my progressive friends that there is considerable sympathy for anti-federalist thought. As our political system continues to decline, I think there may be a chance that the movement spreads.
June 25, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Well, the best of us get banned.
In answer to your discussions with Mencius—Kling actually makes a good point on that, before meandering off into nowhere.
He writes.
“I think that there is a general misfit between our political institutions and the direction of technology. Our institutions are still in the middle of the twentieth century, centralizing power, putting more and more resources into the same number of political hands.”
The point is that we’re stumbling into the 21st century with a worn out, failed system of government, incompatible with the technological advances which will dominate every aspect of humanity’s existence more and more in the coming years.
So all ideas are on the table. It’s an horserace that the Powers That Be will lose, unless they abandon their current methods in the next decade.
So yes, I’d say Mencius’s ideas have as good a chance of succeeding as anyone’s
June 25, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Curator, it’s kind of misleading to say I was banned from a thread. I have been repeatedly banned from the blog because I’ve posted offensive things, this was just the final time. Also, this is Lauren Landsburg’s department, not Arnold Kling’s.
jim, I never ban anybody. But if you succeed out of sheer perversity I will impregnate some Massachusetts high schoolers.
Libra:
I believe getting one anti-federalist Constitutional amendment passed would be far easier than passing 1,000 bills incrementally rolling back the government
Why do you think so? Amendments are quite rare, and some (like the eleventh) are fantastically ineffective to boot.
The problem with our government is not specific policies, it’s the incentives of the governance structure that consistently produce those policies.
True enough, but that doesn’t make a complete reboot any more likely.
Also, it is clear that the Internet is the information source of the future.
Maybe, like how radio and then tv were. I think most internet usage is for very different things than what we discuss though.
Thus I think blogging is an effective way to promote change.
As they say at IOZ “BLAWG”. Blog readership follows a power-law distribution, and the ones with the most views tend to be credentialed and affiliated with well-established organizations. The readers of blogs are also an unrepresentative sampling of the public. The most noble thing we can aspire to be is proud reactionary whiner.
I’m noticing when talking my progressive friends
Stop right there. “I don’t know anybody who voted for Nixon” should have warned the people who recently were saying “All my friends are joining the Ron Paul bandwagon!”
Savrola:
Well, the best of us get banned.
Perhaps. Also the worst. The outliers.
I agree with Tyler Cowen that political centralization has been the result of technology. For more on how the hopes of technophiles have been killed by ugly reality see this diavlog.
Every system of government is failed when we look at it from the perspective of libertarianism or something like that. That hasn’t stopped the State from becoming ubiquitous.
So all ideas are on the table
No, reality will prevent some from even coming near fruition.
So yes, I’d say Mencius’s ideas have as good a chance of succeeding as anyone’s
The average person has nil chance of having any effect, so in that respect Mencius is as likely as them. But one thing he should have drilled into your head is that the average person is not as influential as the Cathedral.
For those interested in another argument I’ve been having with Mencius, this time over crime, “social science” and causality, see the thread for this post at Gene Expression.
June 25, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I didn’t expect learned helplessness from a guy that reads Global Guerrillas. I’d have figured you’d be out in scuba gear cutting undersea cabling or something.
June 25, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Why do you think so? Amendments are quite rare, and some (like the eleventh) are fantastically ineffective to boot.
Congress has a 20% approval rate and 97% re-election rate. It’s effectively an extortion racket. Sure you can vote out your Representative, but then your district will be shunted to the back of the seniority line and lose out on all the goodies. And sure, your interest group can throw your weight behind the challenger – but if the challenger loses – you can forget about getting any pork tossed your way.
As a result, it’s only possible to remove an incumbent Congressman if they have done something that people overwhelmingly disagree with. Thus Congress spends most of its time tending to the needs of the IronPolygon, safely ignoring any popular will. By the definition, a small incremental, anti-statist reform will not get voters worked enough to threaten a Congress-critter’s re-election prospects. Furthermore, people have neither the time nor ability to pay attention to every single incremental reform, and ensure it is actually anti-state, and is not really a give away to some polygon interest group.
Given the record of the unabated advancement of the regulatory state of the past century, I believe that incremental reform is impossible.
A Constitutional amendment is difficult, but it only takes one. The key is to design an amendment that completely changes the algorithm by which decisions are made.
I’m thinking of something like:
– Granting states ( or better, cities) a right to secede from the union
– Returning to the Articles of the Confederation
– An entirely new Constitution, like the one I proposed in the comments of UR (see here)
The second advantage of a Constitutional amendment is that you can route around Congress and the IronPolygon altogether via the convention process.
Blog readership follows a power-law distribution, and the ones with the most views tend to be credentialed and affiliated with well-established organizations
Digg and YouTube have far more visitors than the New York Times ( stats). The blogs like UR are the thought leaders. The message then has to be refined and packaged for the masses. In a Mediarchy, controlling public opinion is power. And in the internet world, anti-state tech geeks have a lot of power to manipulate social media.
One last note. Progressives seem much more receptive to anti-federalist ideas than libertarian ideas. They’ve been brainwashed to believe that without the state children wouldn’t be able to read and the poor would go hungry. But it’s very easy to convince a Sweden-loving progressive, that they’d have a much better chance of establishing their dream welfare state if they could do it locally, without being obstructed by K-Street, the Pentagon, and corrupt Congress-critters. Perhaps anti-federal sentiment is just an artifact of the Iraq war and 8 years of Bush. But if it’s an increasing phenomena, there may be hope.
June 25, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Like many of the sites on my blogroll, I think GG exaggerates things. I think I’ve discussed this at UR, but “leaderless resistance” has a long track record of failure. Even if I succeeded in disrupting things and creating chaos (Jim Henley says that’s not the goal but the result in his review of Robb) I wouldn’t necessarily consider the goal desirable. I also think I would get in trouble cutting cables.
June 26, 2008 at 1:30 am
Congress has a 20% approval rate and 97% re-election rate
Everyone loves their own Congressman and hates the rest. People don’t even know what Congress is doing. It is oddly the case that Republicans approve of this Democratic Congress more than Democrats do, which either shows that the Republican base are essentially Democrats or the the Democratic leadership is essentially Republican. Perhaps both. What actual policies don’t people approve of?
Furthermore, people have neither the time nor ability to pay attention to every single incremental reform, and ensure it is actually anti-state, and is not really a give away to some polygon interest group.
Anti-state policies are unpopular. Handing out goodies is very popular.
Given the record of the unabated advancement of the regulatory state of the past century, I believe that incremental reform is impossible.
Why does it indicate that rather than that radical reform is impossible? The history of the regulatory state itself is a history of incremental reform. Even the repealing of regulations discussed in Brink Lindsey’s book was incremental.
– Granting states ( or better, cities) a right to secede from the union
– Returning to the Articles of the Confederation
I’m all for those, but the general public is not. They think Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents, as was Washington.
The second advantage of a Constitutional amendment is that you can route around Congress and the IronPolygon altogether via the convention process.
Congress perhaps, though there was never an amendment that didn’t go that route. I think the tendrils of the Polygon would still extend to the state legislatures and the hypothetical Constitutional Conventions that have never been raised.
Digg and YouTube have far more visitors than the New York Times
And more people voted for American Idol than President. Your point is irrelevant.
The blogs like UR are the thought leaders.
UR is not a thought leader, it is a strange corner where weirdos congregate.
In a Mediarchy, controlling public opinion is power
You seem to have a Chomskyan view of things. I agree with Caplan’s rejection of Chomsky on the power of the media.
And in the internet world, anti-state tech geeks have a lot of power to manipulate social media
Which is why Ron Paul won the nomination. Oh wait, he crashed and burned.
One last note. Progressives seem much more receptive to anti-federalist ideas than libertarian ideas
That seems to be Keith Preston’s angle. Join the Attack the System yahoo group. Like him, I think the lumpen are more likely to cause things to fall apart than “progressives” though. Otherwise they would support repealing Roe v. Wade.
Perhaps anti-federal sentiment is just an artifact of the Iraq war and 8 years of Bush
Was there a wave of anti-federalism caused by Vietnam?
June 26, 2008 at 6:58 am
“But one thing he should have drilled into your head is that the average person is not as influential as the Cathedral.”
That fact is born in upon me, every time I walk through security checkpoints manned by Congressional Praetorians.
Speaking of “Re-setting the Cathedral is, of course ridiculous and only being considered because we are all “now-men.” One of democracy’s side-affects, it reduces mankind. We demand to have our cake and eat it, immediately.
Though in opposition to social-democracy, we suffer from it as much as our opponents do.
All I’m saying is that democracy hasn’t a future, and the Cathedral’s Custodians aren’t idea-men.
June 26, 2008 at 10:51 am
You’re missing the bigger picture. I’m pointing out trends that are now in their infancy, but will be grow much more important. The centralized media is disintegrating in way that was unimaginable ten years ago. Ron Paul may not have gotten anywhere, but there was a Ron Paul, which by itself is important. And not only is the media disintegrating, it’s disintegrating in a way that gives a lot more power to amateurs who do not have an investment in the federal government. One critical need is a Digg that’s more high brow – one that compete with readers of the New York Times. The Times is so bland these days, that I think a well executed social news site could clean its clock.
The cognitive surplus of the internet geeks is far greater than the man power of the existing media. As Mencius points out today, what’s needed is a rallying point and an organization. The organization needs a web site, slogans, mailing list, meetups around the country, blogs, pamphlets, YouTube videos, etc. One last political movement to end politics altogether.
The other important factor is that people will realize that even with Obama as president and Congress ruled by the Dems, the economic and political system will continue to decline. It will be harder and harder to argue that if progressives could just capture Washington everything will be peaches and cream. The flaws in our economic system will become more apparent and people will cry for answers, any answer. And the anti-federalists need to be there with one.
Whether people agree with anti-federalist ideas depend on how you frame the debate. If you ask people, “Should government do more to keep people healthy” they will say yes. If you ask people, “Who do you trust more to give you health, Washington or local organizations” they will answer local. For the past 100 years, the debate has been framed by political manipulators who are all statist. The anti-federalists need to take back the debate, and reframe it. The Internet has made this possible for the first time. ( I think libertarians may have overestimated the Internet in the short run, but underestimated it in the long run.)
Everyone loves their own Congressman and hates the rest. People don’t even know what Congress is doing.
Exactly. That’s why incremental reform can’t work. The only lever citizens have would be to change the people who compose Congress. But it’s not the people who compose Congress that are the problem. It’s the entire algorithm that is the problem. People recognize that the results of Congress suck. They need to be taught that this is the result of the algorithm, and the algorithm needs to be changed.
Even the repealing of regulations discussed in Brink Lindsey’s book was incremental.
What repealing of regulations?
Like him, I think the lumpen are more likely to cause things to fall apart than “progressives” though. Otherwise they would support repealing Roe v. Wade.
They fear a repeal of Roe v. Wade would result in a nation-wide ban of abortion.
June 26, 2008 at 1:24 pm
All I’m saying is that democracy hasn’t a future
By when do you think it will collapse?
I’m pointing out trends that are now in their infancy, but will be grow much more important
Try taking the outside view. The Goldwater movement is sometimes compared to Ron Paul’s. It lost the election in a landslide, but years later it bore fruit: Richard Nixon, possibly a less conservative president than Jimmy Carter. Ron Paul didn’t even close to the nomination. You’ve hardly got anything to extrapolate from.
but there was a Ron Paul, which by itself is important
Paul has already run for president. In ’88. He won the nomination of the Libertarian Party, but of course failed to win office.
The cognitive surplus of the internet geeks is far greater than the man power of the existing media
It will likely be harnessed toward the improved distribution of pornography.
As Mencius points out today, what’s needed is a rallying point and an organization
Like Ron Paul? Richard Viguerie has been doing that sort of thing for years, and he’s concluded that he repeatedly failed to achieve his policy goals. Now he’s moving towards the Libertarian Party since he refuses to accept defeat.
It will be harder and harder to argue that if progressives could just capture Washington everything will be peaches and cream.
Except that’s just what happened EVERY SINGLE TIME PROGRESSIVES HAVE HELD POWER.
The anti-federalists need to take back the debate, and reframe it
The anti-federalists formed a significant party and debated a major issue long ago: the adoption of the Constitution. It has been a long time since there have been any significant anti-federalists. Even many “libertarians” are centralists and/or supported the Iraq war.
People recognize that the results of Congress suck.
What actual policies do they disagree with? Libertarian populism is a mirage.
What repealing of regulations?
You are apparently unaware of how things were in the era of hegemonic establishment Galbraithian liberalism. People usually credit Reagan with this, but actually Jimmy Carter deregulated trucking and airlines and scrapped price controls. These changes are considered by economists to be more important than any changes in marginal tax rates we’ve seen.
They fear a repeal of Roe v. Wade would result in a nation-wide ban of abortion.
Progressives never stop reminding us that the majority of the population is pro-choice. Progressives also wish they were still living in the 60s, when heroic civil rights activists stood up to rednecks that blathered nonsense about “state’s rights”.
June 26, 2008 at 4:26 pm
The cognitive surplus of the internet geeks is far greater than the man power of the existing media. As Mencius points out today, what’s needed is a rallying point and an organization. The organization needs a web site, slogans, mailing list, meetups around the country, blogs, pamphlets, YouTube videos, etc. One last political movement to end politics altogether.
For many libertarians, myself included, the very idea of “mass mobilization” and crowd cheering is unseemly. What you get are echo chambers and some version of demagoguery. One last political movement to end politics altogether? Hm.
With the combined insights of Robin Hanson and Jeffrey Friedman, among others, we are told of the problems of confirmation bias and the “spiral of conviction” on behalf of both intellectual leaders and their followers. What you get are leaders smart enough to skillfully dismiss information that doesn’t fit their preconceived notions, and followers who do nothing more than recite what the leaders say. “Ignorant Masses, Dogmatic Elites”.
If one is intellectually honest with oneself, the above information will likely relegate them to what Richard Rorty would call the “Critical Left (Right)”, as opposed to the “Progressive Left (Right)”, the version that actually DOES SOMETHING. I’m not advocating total quietism via excessive humility, but it certainly gives me pause.
June 26, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Progressives also wish they were still living in the 60s, when heroic civil rights activists stood up to rednecks that blathered nonsense about “state’s rights”.
Has anyone seen a terrible slasher flick called The Tripper? Came out last year. It’s about a maniac killer on the loose with a Reagan obsession. And, of course, he began his terror upon being released from a mental institution under president Reagan’s orders.
In the opening scene, the future killer’s father confronts a radical environmentalist in the forest circa 1967, who is trying to prevent the father from making an “honest day’s living” cutting down an old redwood. He has to pay his sickly wife’s hospital bills somehow. The environmentalist says “Your wife will have to die then!” Time + repressed rage = Reagan Serial Killer.
June 26, 2008 at 5:51 pm
What we need is a scapegoat that we can rally the lumpen against by depicting it as the root of all evil. Aside from “government” itself, the best bet is probably the Federal Reserve, because a) it’s mostly true and b) it fits the commoners’ popular narratives of shadowy insiders pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
June 26, 2008 at 8:23 pm
For many libertarians, myself included, the very idea of “mass mobilization” and crowd cheering is unseemly
I’d link to John T. Kennedy at No Treason on that, but his site’s down. Again.
I like the way Keith thinks.
June 26, 2008 at 9:03 pm
“By when do you think it will collapse?”
Next two decades. And not collapse. There will be a re-programming. In all likelihood it just won’t be Mencius’s re-programming.
On the other hand, the so-called “progressivism” of egalitarian social-democracy is making inferior intellectuals out of the best available human material…those students who are being groomed to run the Cathedral. It’s not a certainty that their ideas will be successful or even initially adopted.
“You’ve hardly got anything to extrapolate from.”
I was actually not refering to the Ron Paul movement, but to an anti-democratic philosophical awakening.
But now that you mention it…I’ve been inside and outside the Ron Paul movement, and the interesting thing about it is that is composed of young people, having lots of children, who are being urged to infiltrate the Republican Party from the local level.
A sizeable generation gap is forming within the party, as there aren’t enough “mainstream” neo-con twenty and thirty-somethings to replace the aging hacks who currently run things. Being a party hack requires a certain amount of ideological fervor.
And we’re not talking about those vaunted candidates running for congress and so-forth. We’re talking about lowly county and party offices which are being filled even now, by aggressive, young Ron Paul-supporters.
The party can’t stop them. There is nobody to stop them, because the Republican Party is rotting at the roots.
That’s why it’s on schedule to spend the next eight years at least, in the wilderness of minority status.”
And that, in summary, is the extent of what Ron Paul’s movement has accomplished and will accomplish.
The take-over isn’t that noticeable. Perhaps it’s effect will be muted by future factors; in fact, it’s almost a certainty.
But there it is. I never like to come out of something with nothing.
June 26, 2008 at 9:33 pm
“By when do you think it will collapse?”
In the next couple of decades. Collapse, is probably the wrong word for it.
There will be a re-programming because democracy is simply incompatible with scientific and technological advancements. Whether it will be instantaneous or Mencius’s re-programming is doubtful.
But on the other hand, as I’ve mentioned before, social-democracy breeds inferiority and the future successors to the Cathedral are the most mediocre crop yet, talented as they are.
There’s no guarantee that their re-set ideas will be successful or even adopted.
P.S. I just wrote a terribly long post on the Ron Paul movement and its intentions and accomplishments from the point of view of an outside insider.
Lost it. An re-written extended version will eventually appear at the B-Man’s place.
June 26, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Well, looks like it all wasn’t lost.
June 26, 2008 at 11:26 pm
People usually credit Reagan with this, but actually Jimmy Carter deregulated trucking and airlines and scrapped price controls.
I don’t know much about the trucking industry, but the airline industry is as regulated as ever. Yes, it got better briefly after deregulation, but the entropy of our political system cannot be stopped. You fix one thing ( allowing competition in, like Southwest Airlines), but then before you know it something else is regulated. Now we nationalized airport security, forcing passengers into ridiculous lines for the past seven years. Management of air traffic has fallen apart, resulting in an absurd number of delays. And prices were has high as they were in 1970, inflation adjusted.
Meanwhile, regulation and cartelization have increased dramatically in the healthcare sector. The government is printing money and giving it to the financial sector. And the education-credentialing monopoly is stronger than ever.
Libertarians occasionally win a battle over one issue. But at the same time they are losing on five other issues, and the entropy continues unabated. I would trade an incremental victory every five years for one algorithm change every fifty years. Because all it takes is one. Libertarians need to realize that electing a Reagan or even a Goldwater or Ron Paul isn’t going to make a difference. Instead, all the efforts should be channeled into algorithm change.
Libertarian populism is a mirage.
Which is why on the national level libtertarians should concentrate on anti-federalism, not libertarianism. Vermont is anything but libertarian, but it the only state with an active secession movement.
June 27, 2008 at 9:00 am
“Libertarian populism is a mirage.
Which is why on the national level libertarians should concentrate on anti-federalism, not libertarianism. Vermont is anything but libertarian, but it the only state with an active secession movement.”
Many years ago I realized that liberty is something that most people simply do not value to such a degree as to make an ideologically libertarian mass movement possible. What inspires revolt against the state is not abstract conceptions of liberty but the feeling that either one’s culture and primary reference groups, or one’s bread and butter interests, are under attack by the state.
This why it is people from the ghettos who engage in anti-police riots and gun nut militiamen who make bombs, as opposed to educated middle class professional people who live in suburbs, as many libertarians typically are.
June 27, 2008 at 1:05 pm
“This was ruled ad hominem”
Most people cannot distinguish ‘ad hominem’ arguments from insults, and even fewer can distinguish insults from unpleasant or unpopular statements.
The fact that they banned you is a profound benison to your reputation.
June 27, 2008 at 1:12 pm
“It is oddly the case that Republicans approve of this Democratic Congress more than Democrats do, which either shows that the Republican base are essentially Democrats or the the Democratic leadership is essentially Republican.”
Neither. The Democrats had high hopes for their Congressional representatives, hopes which have been for the most part dashed, while the Republicans have found that the Democratic Congresscritters have been very cooperative, and so they approve.
Do not associate the ‘leaders’ and the ‘followers’ just because they claim to belong to the same group. Their interests are often incompatible.
June 27, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Savrola:
A sizeable generation gap is forming within the party, as there aren’t enough “mainstream” neo-con twenty and thirty-somethings to replace the aging hacks who currently run things
Like the foreign policy “realists”, neo-cons have always been an elite without a large numerical base. The difference is that the latter has been able to sway the base into following them.
Libra:
I don’t know much about the trucking industry, but the airline industry is as regulated as ever
It would appear you know as little about that as trucking. The reason the era of gorgeous stewardesses is gone is because previously only the very elite flew, and price competition was prohibited (so they had to compete based on other factors). An article at Reason discussing things is here. It’s true that the feds have horned in on security, but air-travel in general is still much less regulated than before.
And prices were has high as they were in 1970, inflation adjusted.
I find that hard to believe, as consumption inequality has dropped dramatically when it comes to air travel.
Vermont is anything but libertarian
I hear it’s very pro-gun.
Keith:
gun nut militiamen who make bombs
Was there ever really that much of that? Most militias never really engaged in any violence, and McVeigh was never a member of any (“leaderless resistance” fails again). I agree with the rest of what you say there.
melendwyr, the Democratic Party is an organization. It has leaders, and those leaders follow the Iron Law.
June 27, 2008 at 7:55 pm
“Keith:
gun nut militiamen who make bombs
Was there ever really that much of that? Most militias never really engaged in any violence, and McVeigh was never a member of any (”leaderless resistance” fails again). I agree with the rest of what you say there.”
There were a few cases of that, but for the most part, you’re right
June 28, 2008 at 5:50 pm
For someone who doesn’t believe in evil, you certainly are good at finding examples of it, and Hopefully Anononymous is not merely evil, but profoundly evil, fan of Dr. Ishii that he is.
I kind of like Moldbug, but since you link to him faily often, there’s probably something wrong with him as well.
June 28, 2008 at 6:36 pm
MM seems to delight in appearing evil, while HA doesn’t care about it (and so won’t shy away from things considered to be so), or most people for that matter. I’m kind of surprised that someone would be inferring evil-by-association from me to MM rather than the other way around.
June 28, 2008 at 8:25 pm
“Like the foreign policy “realists”, neo-cons have always been an elite without a large numerical base. The difference is that the latter has been able to sway the base into following them.”
They lucked into the Cold War Generation. And let’s face it, the originals are getting old and past their prime.
Their successors, aren’t going anywhere.
Can you see Jamie Kirchick going over well in the heartland?
Hopefully Anononymous is the future. I just hope he doesn’t know it.
June 28, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Can you see Jamie Kirchick going over well in the heartland?
It depends on who he’s contrasted with. Also, don’t obsess over the “heartland”. Is the rest chopped liver?
I agree though that Kirchick is much dumber than the original or even second generation of neocons.
Hopefully Anononymous is the future
I wish that were the case.
June 29, 2008 at 3:01 am
[…] authoritarianism and the dystopian society from the film Equilibrium. Also, I have now updated the previous post about my ban from EconLog with a message from Lauren Landsburg. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Rule of […]
June 29, 2008 at 11:59 am
TGGP,
I’m late to the game, but after reading Lauren’s explanation, I am puzzled. I’ve been running into your seemingly ubiquitous comments for a long while now, and I cannot recall ever having detected a whiff of anything remotely intemperate. Terse, Yes. Overly digressive, on occassion. But there is nothing in my recollection that could reasonably be interpreted as a breach of moderated civility, and on measure my sense is that your comments add more value than most by striking provocative topically relevant chords.
Do you think Lauren could point to examples to illustrate your alleged bad form, or do you think they just find your presence irritating?
June 29, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I can provide examples:
“Naomi Klein and Kristol are both idiots who should never be listened to. If they say the sky is blue, get a second opinion.”
“Peter, start wearing a t-shirt that says “By reading this shirt and declining to flee you hereby agree to perform fellatio on me”“
July 1, 2008 at 8:25 am
Not bad.
July 2, 2008 at 1:45 pm
There’s a heirarchy of blog sins, and overmoderating the comments is not at the top of the heirarchy. I think I’ve posted about this on my blog.
I think it goes:
(1) Doesn’t allow comments.
(2) Only allows pre-approved comments.
(3) Overmoderates comments or only allows comments from non-anonymous commenters.
More energy should be devoted to criticizing the bigger sinners, such as Anders Sandberg and Andrew Sullivan, for not allowing comments at all, in my opinion.
July 2, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Sabotta,
It’s hard for me to argue that I’m not “profoundly evil” by your definition, since I do aspire to value my persistence over that of the rest of the world population. But from my perspective, information theoretic death for me renders any concern I’d have for the rest of you absurd.
However, I do take exception to your claim that loosening constraints of human medical experimentation to the lax level of Dr. Ishii (while hitching it high scientific standards, and prioritizing ending human aging and minimizing existential risk as I’ve consistently co-advocated) is fundamentally evil. From a consequentialist perspective, it could could be fundamentally very good, because it could allow more lives saved/improved quality of life for the living/reduced probability of suffering for any given individual factoring their odds of being the subject of a horrific experiment vs. the odds of their avoiding a horrific fate due to knowledge gleaned from those experiments.
My preference would be that medical experimentation be narrowly focused on maximizing my persistence odds. But that doesn’t mean that “horrific” medical experiments wouldn’t reduce probabilities of “horrific” outcomes for people overall. Which I don’t think is fundamentally evil from a consequentialist perspective.
July 2, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I agree on the hierarchy of sins. I stated as much earlier here.
July 3, 2008 at 9:32 pm
It would appear you know as little about that as trucking. The reason the era of gorgeous stewardesses is gone is because previously only the very elite flew, and price competition was prohibited (so they had to compete based on other factors).
I am aware of that history. But it was also true that in the 1970’s you could arrive fifteen minutes before your flight and easily board the plane. Now you have to arrive one or two hours before the flight. How much does that cost in time? Not to mention the humiliation of subjecting oneself to the security regime. I spent four months backpacking across China. When I returned to the states, my first impression was that it was America that was the police state. The Chinese security agents were unarmed and super friendly. The Americans had M-16s and were very gruff. This is your shining example of libertarian progress?
The cost information came from CPI data. From the years 1970 to 2006, the price index for airfare increased 50% more than median income increased. A bit of Googling tells me that airfare from Boston to Washington in 1965 was $25, while San Francisco to LA was $12.50. Today, both fares are $150 (including taxes). That’s a 12X increase and a 6X increase. Median income increased by about 8X. It seems the prices are in the same range, if not a bit higher, than before deregulation.
Flying was definitely was more of an elite activity back then ( although my mom was a school teacher and flew cross country regularly). And certainly far more routes have opened up since deregualation ( although its hard to tell what was a result of deregulation and what was the continuation of existing trends). Price competition has eliminated the gorgeous stewardess and driven down pre-tax air fares. But taxes have risen substantially, so instead of your money going to finance delicious in-flight meals and hot stewardesses, the money is going into the TSA bottomless pit. This is progress?
Anyway, the net change in air travel from 1970 to today is 1) similar prices, after taxes 2) more routes and more people traveling 3) a massively burdensome security regime 4) a massively incompetent air traffic control system.
On net, some things have gotten better and some have gotten worse. Prices went down, taxes went up. Routing was deregulated, but security is now a government controlled farce.
My overall point is that air deregulation does not represent this great libertarian achievement. On the net, perhaps it has been a modest improvement. It was better at first, but inch by inch, different taxes and regulations were put in place, gradually eliminating the initial improvement. Meanwhile, every sector from education to healthcare, from manufacturing to finance, has gotten worse since 1970 (adjusted for technological improvements). If airline deregulation is the best case study of incremental libertarian change, then incremental libertarian change is indeed doomed.
July 3, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Like the guys at CafeHayek I’m more interested in the data on consumption than median income. Air travel is affordable enough that a lot more people engage in it now that couldn’t before.
Taxes have risen substantially? The marginal tax rate in the 70s was much higher. The mnemonic is easy to remember, in the 70s the top earners paid 70%. Nowadays the idea that income taxes should be more than a third strikes the public as ridiculous. The total amount of tax revenue has certainly grown, but that’s because those who pay the highest percentage have been raking in lots more money.
July 3, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Taxes on air travel have increased. The data I referenced shows that the prices of air travel have not changed all that much ( relative to median income). If you have different data, I would be happy to look at it and reconsider my view. I agree that consumption has increased, probably partly due to deregulation and partly to a continuation of existing trends. But again, my overall point was that the changes air travel regulation have been at most a modest win for deregualation. If this is the best the libtertarians can do, it’s not enough to counter decline in all other areas.
( and yes, while the tax rates at the top brackets are lower, combined federal, state and local tax rates are up by several percentage points for the median earner)
April 5, 2012 at 11:06 am
I got banned from econlog as well. Lauren has done such a good job of banning everyone that there are no comments. Good job.
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