Courage is not the towering oak
that sees storms come and go;
it is the fragile blossom
that opens in the snow.
Alice Mackenzie Swaim
Don Boudreaux Quotation of the Day
"True liberals are principled cosmopolitans who reject nativism and tribalism and racism and any other variety of us-vs.-them-ism or we’re-superior-to-them-ism or we’re-more-deserving-than-them-ism."
I have a particular sense of humor; my students had to endure it for 8 years (although sometimes I didn't think that they caught on). A perfect example was Friday's post where I wrote a tongue-in-cheek critique of billionaire busybody NYC Mayor Bloomberg, whom has taken on, not city services, but nursing one's child (no doubt he has traced back lousy public school performance to not enough mothers breastfeeding their children). I love to exploit plays on words (like the term "boob", which has a meaning of a "foolish person", e.g., a government bureaucrat, as well as a woman's breast.) I also used the occasion to mock Big Dairy. I don't know about the nursing issues personally (the closest I've come to the issue is feeding baby nephews and nieces their bottles, and as to what was in those bottles, unlike the male characters in Friends: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"), but I have read that there can be milk production issues (e.g., mothers whom have had breast surgery) and/or a mother's recent dietary choices, health condition or prescription drug intake.
I also have a quirky, contrarian streak and will tweak individuals when I want to make a point. I don't think any economist reads my posts, but I find it amusing that one of my favorite libertarian economist bloggers, Mark Perry of Carpe Diem, has a pet peeve regarding punctuation and other English language rule violations; like Boudreaux, Perry often publishes posts of great quotes/quotations. At some point, Perry decided that Boudreaux's use of "quotation" vs. "quote" of the day was more appropriate and made that change.
I have a pet peeve about people whom pay undue attention to shallow, surface-level elements or engage in shallow analysis. Barack Obama is famous for this: he REGULARLY engages in shallow analysis, begs the question and dishonestly asserts that his "solutions" are "fair and balanced", co-opts the opposition's terminology (e.g., "shared sacrifice"--which has become a self-contradictory euphemism for class warfare policies), repeats truisms and political spin, and creates straw man arguments: he frequently expresses exasperation with the opposition and hypocritically and judgmentally characterizes them of acting strictly out of obstructionism for partisan purposes. "we cannot afford to do nothing." Obviously he hasn't learned from Thomas Jefferson: "Delay is preferable to error." or medical sages: "First, do no harm." A legitimate scholar has no need for intellectual filler in speeches: partisan sniping, excuses, vacuous truisms, and political spin. Never mind regurgitated political points scored by an equally inept FDR nearly 80 years ago
On a more personal level, I've been annoyed by the self-appointed grammar police, channeling their inner English high school teacher. I remember talking at length on some serious issue with a professional colleague a few years back, when he started repeating a phrase back to me that had absolutely nothing to do with the topic I was discussing. It suddenly dawned on me that he was quibbling over some incidental phrase I had used minutes earlier. Which meant that he hadn't really listened to a single word I had said over the prior 5 minutes.
All this discussion was to explain why I used "quotation" of the day (because Boudreaux does), an inside joke as to the free market of using 'quote' vs. 'quotation' of the day.
There is an interesting twist here, because I'm not using the original quotation in Boudreaux's post, but Boudreaux's own discussion of the quotation. In the blog I've normally used 'progressive' in place of the ordinary 'liberal' in ordinary discourse; no doubt others would quibble over the use of the words. More recently I've sometimes used the terms 'social liberal' or 'high liberal'. We can also quibble over 'conservative' and a more pragmatic Burkean approach; I should caution even though I've characterized myself as a more pragmatic Ron Paul, I'm not a slave to the status quo or its judicial equivalent of stare decisis (a classic example has to do with the arbitrary campaign finance prohibition on political speech for corporations). The progressives do not get to restrict economic liberty and move to consolidate their ill-gotten statist gains, blowing the ideological whistle ("that's not Burkean, you hypocrites!" as if brandishing a cross before an advancing vampire!) on conservatives whom dare to remedy impairments on core liberty principles. By 'pragmatic' I mean that I am willing to build coalitions and bide my time. I understand that just a handful of legislators in either chamber can be marginalized.
When Boudreaux speaks of "true liberal" here, he's implying a contrast to social liberals/high liberals/progressives. The unalienable right of liberty starts from being able to think or act without arbitrary restrictions by the government or other people (negative liberty). "High liberals" compel others to do things for others, i.e., positive liberty (e.g., to provide an old-age pension, free public education, health care, etc); this typically involves the subjugation of one's own property rights, e.g., redistribution of income or property). We "true liberals" or "classical liberals" reject "social liberals" as little more than high-sounding authoritarians, unwilling to rely on or work with private-sector alternatives they can't control, e.g., charitable hospitals, private schools, brokerages, etc. They do not understand or trust in Adam Smith's invisible hand, "a thousand points of light", etc. (For example, high liberals are not satisfied with, say, the ability of the free press or free market competition (e.g., "kosher meats") to deal with occasional rogue business practices, e.g., meat packing in the early twentieth century. A good example of the contrast in styles was Gov. Jeb Bush's policy of making pricing information on government-sponsored filled prescriptions publicly available, whereas high liberals typically advocate controlling prices or punishing vendors.)
Note that Obama and his fellow progressives, despite paying lip service to immigration (in conjunction with the civil rights constituents of the traditional New Deal coalition), have implemented mercantilist policies (e.g., "made in America", restrictions on visiting foreign workers, stonewalling free trade pacts, attacks on offshoring, etc.) Boudreaux's referential quotation from Jagdish Bhagwati notes a strong correlation between those who advocate free trade and those who promote immigration. I would also argue free market principles and economic growth: we should see entrepreneurs motivated to immigrate by perceived lower barriers to entry (e.g., excessive taxation and regulation).
George Will, "It's a Question of Context": Thumbs UP!
I have cited my favorite columnists, including George Will, but I haven't regularly read him over the life of the blog. I think in part I've wanted to ensure my commentaries weren't derivative of other columnists.
I am direct, and I have no problem admitting that I've changed my mind over time. In part, I've blackboxed some issues. I subsequently learn some information which leads me to question my assumptions.
I've listed an example from academia before in past posts; during research seminars, I had reviewed a number of computer user satisfaction measures. It really wasn't until I started devising my own measures and looking at measure development in reference disciplines (not unlike taking apart a watch and reassembling it) when I started questioning some of the arguments that the MIS measure developers had made; I had trusted, for instance, that the peer review process would filter out questionable methodology. I never started out with the idea of calling into question the work of established MIS academics; in fact, it would have been much easier to publish a piece of research based on a path established by respected academics. Like most academics, I hoped to earn tenure one day.
It would start out as a nagging doubt. For example, a famous MIS paper involved assessing the dimensionality of information. The study, however, yielded some confounded factors that seemed, at least to me, of being counterintuitive--but nobody else ever seemed to express a similar concern: I was like the boy noticing the emperor was wearing no clothes. At some point in the process of my dissertation I wrote to the researcher (whom held an endowed chair at a Florida university) and he scribbled back a note something to the effect he had written his article some time back and had moved; he wasn't in a position to help me. I wouldn't say that his flippant response annoyed me personally, but it did bother me I hadn't seen anyone replicate the study. So while at UWM, I decided to do a little replication study (I used confirmatory factor analysis, and the factors didn't hold). I submitted the paper to the national DSI conference (it was a very cool paper, although I don't think I've ever seen it cited).
I've delivered many lightly attended sessions, and so I expected maybe a handful or a dozen academics to attend my presentation of the paper; to my surprise, the entire room was full (but the Florida scholar who I had seen in passing before on multiple occasions wasn't there). I felt a little like Sally Field winning an Oscar: you really, really like my little study. They loved my little anecdotal story about contacting the researcher a few years earlier. I've won some praise outside my discipline for other articles, but this was a core MIS paper; it was probably my favorite experience and memory at an academic conference. (I will say I also loved the fact that the keynote speaker at the 1985 ICIS doctoral consortium had singled out my dissertation topic during his address (out of maybe 3 dozen participants); a jealous participant whispered to me that the practitioner speaker didn't understand my research project. It didn't matter...)
Going back to politics, I have grown over the past couple of years to loathe FDR. Every school kid is taught to respect FDR and his legacy. According to Wikipedia: "A majority of polls rank Roosevelt as the second or third greatest president, consistent with other surveys. Roosevelt is the sixth most admired person from the 20th century by U.S. citizens, according to Gallup."
I knew, of course, that FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court during his second term, and there were his unprecedented third and fourth terms in office, facts that had always bothered me. I don't recall my teacher or professor ever discussing these in a particularly critical manner. I think the general context was that the Supreme Court had been obstructionist, and WWII had broken out later in his second term: one doesn't change leadership in times of war, particularly one between good and evil. I'll never forget seeing footage from liberated concentration camps in high school: piles of bodies, etc. Social security was very popular; even my Republican grandfather, a grocery owner, was proud of qualifying for a high social security distribution.
What has changed from early college? It's been an accumulation of facts I've learned since then, incluing, but not restricted to:
- FDR was responsible for the internment of Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants during WWII
- FDR's Executive Order 6102 demanded that Americans hand over essentially all personally-owned gold for $20.67/oz. Subsequent to the confiscation, Congress through the 1934 Gold Reserve Act (i.e., to migrate Fed-held gold to the US Treasury) subsequently banned enforcement of gold clauses (a hedge against the Fed devaluing the dollar) and raised the price of gold to $35 for gold-standard purposes (international trade/banking). The government, of course, had no ethical problem with pocketing its ill-gotten windfall profits from gold confiscation at the expense of the general public. (In effect, a depreciated currency offsets deflation: for example, imports are more expensive.)
- FDR wanted to serve in uniform during WWI, but the armistice got in the way (remember Clinton's post-9/11 regret that he hadn't been given an opportunity to demonstrate what a great wartime President he would have been?)
- FDR's first namesake son died early in life, so he named a subsequent son the same
- when FDR in his third term wanted Congress to enact a 99.5% income tax for incomes starting at $100K, Congress balked; he then issued an executive order confiscating all income in excess of $25K (proving FDR's lack of respect for the balance of powers went beyond the Supreme Court)
- FDR used political gimmicks like cash-and-carry sale of arms (favoring the British whom controlled the Atlantic and had currency) while maintaining a facade of official neutrality (and I've repeatedly cited wage-and-price controls, with disingenuous workarounds like tax-free health care benefits) After all, selling war materials to combatants would employ a lot of American workers....
- FDR disingenuously attempted to mask his political ambition for an unprecedented third term by shooting down challengers behind the scenes and saying that he would only accept a draft petition
- FDR in his third election sought to downplay Willke's reservations about military interventions by promising recruiters that he would do anything to keep the US out of the war and assuring military recruits that they would not be sent to fight in a foreign war
- when FDR ran as Cox's running mate in the 1920 election, he was a prohibitionist; when he ran for President in 1932, he was pro-repeal (because, after all, the federal government can tax alcohol...)
- consider one of the biggest bait-and-switch campaigns (1932) in history: FDR "ridiculed Hoover's huge deficits. Roosevelt campaigned on the Democratic platform advocating "immediate and drastic reductions of all public expenditures," "abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus, and eliminating extravagances" and for a "sound currency to be maintained at all hazards.""
George Will's column starts with Obama's narcissistic comparison of his first couple of years to the early accomplishments of Lincoln, FDR, and LBJ. (Yeah, that's why the Obama reelection campaign has been saturating the airwaves bragging about the 2009 stimulus, ObamaCare, and Dodd N. Frankenstein instead of ad hominem attacks on Mitt Romney...) Will then proceeds to the fawning coverage of progressives praising America's "most cerebral" President.
Somehow the cerebral President has been caught in various gaffes (private economy is just fine, you didn't build that, etc.) Oh, he has been quoted "out of context", and his mainstream media followers take their cues appropriately. (You see, if you play his speeches backwards, you'll hear the full context... )
George Will then does one of his trademark slow-reveal pieces stitching together little-known anecdotes about another progressive gaffe-free icon whom had also been quoted out of context.
The fact that Obama and FDR did not have the integrity to own up to their mistakes speaks volumes about their character (or lack thereof). It would have been better for them simply to admit they made a mistake and make a correction for the record. But trying to defend a mistake by attacking the opposition for "distortion" or quote out of context? Transparent and pathetic.
(This to a certain extent reminds me of the Shirley Sherrod kerfuffle a while back where the late Andrew Breitbart was accused of taking a clip from a speech she had given "out of context". (Sherrod initially refused to help out (with contacts, resources, etc.) a white farmer whom she had found offensive but later changed her mind.) The clip in question expressed her condescending self-satisfaction with having put that white farmer in his place, to the audible approval of the audience. The White House and the sponsoring organization initially condemned the segment, even though they (unlike Breitbart) had the full video at the time. When the mainstream media got the full tape, they pointed out that Sherrod had gone on to explain how she had a redemptive insight that the real issue wasn't racial conflict but class conflict and helped the farmer. It became mainstream groupthink that Shirley Sherrod had been treated unfairly--not because the video sound bite was inaccurate, but because it was "incomplete"... This is like Clinton arguing that he never had sex with Monica Lewinsky because it was oral sex, not sexual intercourse. Yeah, Bill: context is everything...
All that may well be true (perhaps in progressive circles, class prejudice is more equal than racial prejudice.) But you had a public sector employee confessing that she let her personal feelings interfere with her job performance. You can argue that she ended up fixing her mistake; that's fine. But what's the first excuse you hear, say, for embezzlement? "Oh, I was going to pay it back before anyone noticed." Most of us in our jobs have had to deal with people we dislike intensely--in my case, it's been a small fraction of the students, faculty, college administrators, other DBA's, project managers, clients, co-workers, etc., I've had to deal with. But my professionalism came first.
One example to make the point: I was working as corporate DBA for a Japanese subsidiary in Santa Clara, CA. My boss at the time, although very personable, was unpredictable, making unilateral decisions affecting functionality of our enterprise software, pushing up unrealistic deadlines, doing things that put our vendor support agreements at risk, and naming inexperienced people in charge of key projects (he said it was his style of managing people by putting them "into the deep end (of the pool)": basically he was writing a check on my back). I couldn't predict what he was going to do next; it was like looking after a 2-year-old with a screwdriver in a room full of open sockets. I developed a stress-induced cough; one day I woke up and discovered I (who sang in high school choir) couldn't sing beyond a 2 or 3-note range--my voice was fading out beyond the range.
I started talking to recruiters. I had arranged for an interview with a real estate portal based out of Austin, TX (a long-desired return to my home state and my folks' home just an hour or so away). We were finalizing arrangements for my in-person interview, when news broke that my boss had suffered a heart attack while at our Vermont branch. The point is that I canceled the interview and stayed on while my boss recuperated. If I had resigned at the time, it would have affected company operations (we had a small staff, I was wearing multiple caps, and I had no junior resource). I didn't owe it to my boss (whom I don't think ever thanked me for stepping up while he was recovering). I did it for reasons of professionalism, and it cost me the job I wanted in Austin (when I resumed my search a few months later, I discovered that the client had moved on).
Would I have fired Ms. Sherrod for admitting at least initially she didn't act professionally? I think punishing someone for being honest sends the wrong message; I also believe in personal redemption. But I would find it very difficult to promote someone if I had doubts about her professional judgment.)
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Frankie Valli, "Swearin' to God"
