Thomas Frank: What's the Matter with Liberals?

[opebo]

It hardly seems fair to blame a political ideology or movement for being above the simple minds of the masses. 

[opebo]

It hardly seems fair to blame a political ideology or movement for being above the simple minds of the masses. 

Since you explicitly stated in another thread that half the motivation of liberalism was to punish lower class whites for their oppression of blacks, while exempting upper class whites from such negative effects, maybe it's just that the "simple minds" have finally picked up the animus directed at them by the liberals, and have pulled away.

Only when their behaviour and views are stupid and intolerant, which alas is frequently.  But I never said that half the motivation of liberalism was to punish lower class whites, I said that half the motivation of liberalism was to make the intolerant oppressors miserable, regardless of whether it helped the oppressed (though obviously it did do the latter as well).  You made the leap that the oppressors were lower class whites.  Personall I think this category included the vast majority of whites of all classes.

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As should those of all reasonable men.

[opebo]

Well if it's the case that most whites are oppressors, why should only the poorer ones suffer?  That's the practical effect of liberal policies, and much of the aim of liberal policies, as you acknowledged. 

That is because we retain capitalism, where you can normally buy your way out of any situation you find uncomfortable.  The most obvious method is private schooling.  The only way I can think of around that is to tax the rich to pay for numerous scholarships to private schools, thus exposing them to the presence of blacks in a similar fashion to the exposure of poor whites to blacks caused by the integration of public schools.

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When you say 'pay the whole freight' you obviously don't mean financially - you mean suffering the deleterious effects of the proximity of black people.  That viewpoint is racist, but I won't object to it, as I understand that poor whites are themselves in a desperate situation, and highly vulnerable to crime and so forth regardless of whether the cause is (as they seem to think) some innate bad qualities of blacks, or in fact what is being done to them by their oppressors.

[opebo]

The only problem is that the liberals didn't "sacrifice the liberal economic policies that used to connect them to such voters on the altar of centrism". The problem was their economic policies just kept getting more and more liberal, and then-- pop! Between 1966 and 1982, the Dow Jones Industrials Average lost 80% of its value, once you adjust for inflation.

Mostly due to oil prices.

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And during this period of high stock market returns the wages of the working class plummeted.  As they have been doing for 30 years.

[opebo]

The only problem is that the liberals didn't "sacrifice the liberal economic policies that used to connect them to such voters on the altar of centrism". The problem was their economic policies just kept getting more and more liberal, and then-- pop! Between 1966 and 1982, the Dow Jones Industrials Average lost 80% of its value, once you adjust for inflation.

Mostly due to oil prices.

I often wonder what would have happened had not Nasser closed the port of Aqaba and made belligerent threats towards the vulnerable Israel in the spring of 1967. The Six Day War would not have happened, so Islamic fundamentalism would not have arisen from the subsequent discredition of pan-Arab nationalism. Thus there would have been no Yom Kippur War of 1973 to avenge the Six Day War. Thus there would have been no first oil shock in response to American resupply of Israel during the Yom Kippur war. Thus the Iranian regime would not have mismanaged any newly acquired oil wealth. Thus there would have been no the second oil shock resulting from the Iranian revolution resulting from the government's mismanagement of oil wealth expectations. Thus there would have been no high interest rate austerity policies of the early 1980s in order to control inflation arising from high oil prices. Thus there would have been no Latin America's lost decade and a 20-year slowdown in world economic growth resulting from the interest rate hike. Thus the beginning of that slowdown would not have led to the rise of the neoclassicists and the "washington consensus" to muck our way out of the misery. Thus there would have been no 25 years of reduced productivity growth in the OECD as the global economy "restructured". Thus there would have been no age of globalization and inequality we have today as a result of that restructuring. God does find a way of making what goes on in the Holy Land relevant, doesn't he?

Ok, now that I've gotten that out of my system, I was just joking in the above paragraph. Blaming all of that on the Six Day War is like blaming a wrong turn by Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand's chauffeur for Hitler-- it probably would have happened eventually anyways.

What a lot of typing.  The point was that the economic polices were not at fault, the rise in oil prices was.  Had the economy been laissez-faire at that time the increase in oil prices would've caused great misery and dislocation as well.  Not unlike the minor ill effects being caused by our current comparatively tiny increase in oil prices.

[opebo]

Proximity to UNDERCLASS blacks has a huge deleterious effect on anybody's quality of life.  Everybody knows this, including blacks who don't fit that description.  People of all income levels and races perceive - correctly - that proximity to underclass blacks will make their lives much worse.

The difference between well-off white liberals and poor whites is that well-off white liberals will never admit this

I redily admit this, and have never denied it.  However I would say that proximity to 'underclass' whites is also very bad.  The difference is attributable to the fact that poor whites are somewhat less oppressed than poor blacks.

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Nevertheless it is an obvious fact, whether you find it tiresome or not.

[opebo]

Neither downplayed nor ignored.  Just misunderstood.  I blame the schools.  And they're largely run by "liberals" so yes, I guess I blame the "liberals"

You feed the schoolkids a diet of processed fatty foods and constant political correctness, and you end up with a generation of hapless overweight geeks who decide they want to become "feminists"  That's just reality, man.  And bitching about it won't solve the problem. 

I also think there's some duplicity.  Flyers makes a good point.  But keep in mind that both sides are guilty of this sort of aggrandizing.  But as I pointed out in the Krugman thread, and Dazzleman points out here, this is typical of "liberal logic", or to use Frank's own words, they simply "misunderstand" the problem.  And it's going to get worse before it gets better.  That's one view I have acquired from posting here and reading posts.  The posters are mostly from the under-30 crowd, so it's a nice window on the failings of the American educational systems.

So what is this 'political correctness' you speak of?  The unwillingess to consider the possibility that socio-economic class is the most predictive factor in a person's life?  How about the idea that non-rich individuals have little power to change their position in the social heirarhcy?  Those sound like the real taboo topics in our present poltical climate.

By contrast saying blacks are genetically inferior, or that gays are perverted and damned, is actually widely accepted.  I think you are about 30 years out of date on your definition of political correctness.

[opebo]

  Like WMS and Jfern, I also think tracking is a fine idea, by the way.  jfern and WMS and I probably agree on other things as well, but polictical correctness, lack of critical thinking...

I'm not sure what 'tracking' is honestly, but if I had to guess I would say it is pigeonholing children into educational tracks very early in life.  I abhor this idea - the obvious result would be to close any hope of class mobility (though education is mostly a false hope).  Every little lower class child would be sent to mechanic's courses or taught how to obey orders and cook food or mop the floor, while the little upper-middle-class children (probably at a different public school) would be prepared for college.

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My point was that the predominant 'political correctness' of 2005 is  conservative and religious, not liberal or secular. 

[opebo]

My point was that the predominant 'political correctness' of 2005 is  conservative and religious, not liberal or secular. 

My god man!  That statement, in and of itself, is about as politically correct a thing as I can imagine.  (of  course what is PC in some circles such as the ones you like, may be anathematic in others, and vice-versa, but that's all part of the idiocy of political correctness in the first place.  part, of course, but not all.)

I don't see how identifying your opponents political philosophy, and recognizing its ascendancy, is 'politically correct'.  It is merely observing reality!