Pharyngula::It wasn't liberals who killed the Middle

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Sunday, August 22, 2004

It wasn't liberals who killed the Middle

PZ Myers • 20 Comments

I know this feeling. Chad Orzel is backing away from the abyss.

I wouldn't do that [vote for a Republican] now, no matter how nice she was. Not because I've grown a lot more liberal, but because a vote for a Republican-- any Republican-- is, in the end, a vote to keep Tom DeLay in a leadeship role in Congress. At this point, it really doesn't matter any more what positions the candidates take on the issues-- no matter how moderate the candidate, they're caucusing with dangerous lunatics, and that's unacceptable.

I started thinking about this while reading Mike Kozlowski's comments on my earlier remarks about political evolution (it's not really on point over there, which is why I'm posting it here). I think that this is really the key to a lot of what I've been seeing, and what some of Mike's commenters are saying. It's not that my politics have moved leftward, so much as it is a matter of right-wing politics being taken over by charlatans and madmen. There are plenty of Republicans who are perfectly unobjectionable to me-- many of them simply because they are so lacking in personality that I can't work up real hatred (think George Pataki, or the elder George Bush), but people like Dole and McCain are at least worthy of respect-- but I can't in good conscience vote for any of them, because of the baggage they bring along.

I've probably always been a bit further left than Chad—I was brought up in a strongly pro-labor family, and voting for any Republican was unthinkable—but I could at least empathize a bit with individual Republicans, and I certainly didn't see them as awful people. I could believe the idea that Republicans wanted what was best for everyone, but were simply more cautious about change and more focused on pragmatic solutions. But no more. The leadership of the Republican party boarded a rocketship to Dingusville and went blasting off, while the majority seem to be jogging along behind them, wishing they could be going over the cliff as quickly, and I simply don't comprehend the phenomenon. While third parties really aren't viable in our system, and I can understand why moderates wouldn't want to splinter off, why aren't they screaming bloody murder at the lunatic leadership? If McCain deserves respect, why is he supporting that vicious weasel in the Oval Office? Shouldn't there be a point where principles outweigh party politics?

So, yeah, I think I've also mostly been standing still in my politics (well, maybe I've been getting a little bit more radical in reaction) while the Republicans veer off into insanity (and don't even mention libertarians to me—that's politics for the infantile and self-centered, and I'm about as likely to ever vote for a Republican as a Libertarian, i.e., never). Where once upon a time I found the whole subject rather boring, now I find myself motivated to fight against the bad guys…and yes, I do think of them as the bad guys. People who endorse and enable irresponsible, destructive policies, as the current Republican leadership have, don't get to pretend to be wearing a white hat anymore.

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Comments:

#5438: Uthar Wynn — 08/22 at 09:39 PM
It was BOTH sides that killed the middle. Both the Republicans and the Demeocrats are dabling with extremism at this point.

By the way, why would YOU give a damn about moderate politics? You're about as far left as they come...

#5440: PZ Myers — 08/22 at 09:59 PM
That's simply absurd. The Democrats have been steadily moving to the right for years. The bulk of the party is now somewhere in the middle, or to the right of it.

Name one extremist liberal policy advocated by the Democrats. Just one.

And I care about having an alternative to a liberal party, even if I'd never vote for it, because I can appreciate reasonable differences of opinion and am willing to compromise; I see no compromise with insanity.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#5442: Uthar Wynn — 08/22 at 10:25 PM
You know, I've got to stop posting political rants when horribly sleep deprived. I've noticed that some of my posts are are weak and poorly written, and the frequency of these is in direct relation to the amount of sleep I have.

So another time, PZ, so I may seem to you like a mere "shallow troll" and not a "stupid shallow troll".

Adios.

#5444: DarkSyde — 08/22 at 11:08 PM
I can envision a Republican Administration that works to limit government influence on trade and encourages a free market for all re: prescription drugs from Canada.
I can envision a Republican Administration which exerts fiscal responsibility re: The Deficit.
I can envision a Republican Administration which values character and results over false innuendo and slime re: Kerry's combat record Vs a slow-witted, spoiled, Texas brat.

I'm a Republican. The real deal. An old fashioned, small government, fiscal conservative. I plan on staying that way. But not these clowns, they bear no identifiable resemblance to anything remotely close to the party I support. I won't be voting for Bush, I'll be voting for Kerry. Bush has been a disaster and it's time for Republicans who have any integrity and common sense to admit it.
Bush is a vicious weasel, but the halls of power are chock full of vicious weasels, so I don't really hold that against him. This particular weasel however is incompetent and worse.

There are few things more appalling in senior leadership than an immature, incompetent, vicious, weasel trying weasel out of taking responsibility for their own incompetent weasel behavior. Unless it's an incompetent, cowardly, vicious, weasel that hides behind hollow religious apologetics and false morality to pull the wool over the eyes of their fellow theists so that they can line their pockets and rip the values of their faith, their party, and our nation's Constitution, to shreds.

#5445: mattH — 08/23 at 12:16 AM
I think it was sometime around 2002 that someone said that they respected many of the moderate Republicans from the Northeast, like Olympia Snowe, stated how much they agreed with their ideas and ideals, and how much they agreed in general with their positions, and how they were going to vote for the Democrats because they would like to see that moderate Republican agenda implemented.

Quite simply, as long as the people who are in power remain in power, or people like them replace them, the moderate Republican agenda will never be a reality, and a vote for a moderate Republican will inevitably result in furthering the power-mongers in place.

#5447: Abiola Lapite — 08/23 at 03:33 AM
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"and don't even mention libertarians to me—that's politics for the infantile and self-centered"

I find your view incomprehensible, seeing as you seem to think Republicans tolerable; but what else is a libertarian but a Republican without the social conservatism (or conversely, a Democrat without the economically damaging, feel-good policies)? Or is it a matter of "heightening the contradictions", i.e, feeling discomfited by people whose views aren't comfortably far enough from one's own to be seen as the "other", yet aren't close enough to be thought of as comrades?

I don't see anything "infantile" and "self-centred" about libertarianism, and I really don't think you've ever given it a good, fair look if you do. I came to libertarianism by an unusual route, and it had nothing to do with the attitudes you described: in Africa I watched government fail, and fail badly, for years on end, and yet it refused (and in most places on the continent is still refusing) to get out of the way and let people improve their own lot. Consequently, I've never been able to make the carefree assumption that many liberals do that just because there's a problem, the government will have an answer that won't be worse than the cure; not every problem need have a solution.

Then there's another angle to consider, and one that I'd hope you as an academic would appreciate, namely the economic one. One subject I've done a fair bit of study on is economics, certainly a great deal more than biology, and the one thing that strikes one in studying the subject is how powerfully markets work, and how even well-intentioned government policies can end up distorting them for the worse, a finding backed both by clearly-thought out reasoning as well as loads of empirical evidence. There's a reason why so many economists have a tendency to be libertarians, and it isn't because their libertarianism drove them into the field either; one thing you'll find is that even very, very good, liberal economists like Brad DeLong who disagree with libertarian viewpoints at least respect them enough to acknowledge the strong arguments for them, and rather than disparaging them as "infantile" and "self-centred", actually try to do the heavy lifting required to make their preferred policies unassailable to libertarian criticism.
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#5450: — 08/23 at 08:55 AM
Consider some of the Republicans of the past, like Lincoln and Teddie Roosevelt. What happened?

As to libertarians, I think I partially agree with Abiola Lapite, except I would change one word: "... what else is a libertarian but a Republican without the social (conscience)?" I think this is a reasonably good example of the use of irony.

#5452: — 08/23 at 09:12 AM
the one thing that strikes one in studying the subject is how powerfully markets work, and how even well-intentioned government policies can end up distorting them for the worse

Very true. I think the issue some people have with total lassiez-faire policy is that what's good for the economy isn't necessarily good for us -- for instance, chemical plants can save money, lower prices, and ultimately improve quality of life by making consumer goods more widely available by dumping their waste, untreated, into streams and lakes. The people who fish in, swim in, and drink from those bodies of water, however, may be paying a cost that far outweighs any economic benefit. I myself would like to see less government meddling in international trade, but I don't want a return to the regulation-free days of The Jungle.

#5453: — 08/23 at 09:18 AM
In reality, it should be real republicans like DarkSyde who have the most to gain from a Bush defeat... it is the necessary first step to dragging the GOP back from control of a minority of complete psychopaths.

Average republicans are ashamed that they are associated with the likes of DeLay, Bush, and Cheney. Those republicans I know are more anxious that the party be recovered from the extremists than I am, because I'm happy to see the republican party flailing underwater with the millstone of those lunatics strapped around its neck.

Trackback: Republican party boarded a rocketship to Dingusville and went blasting off, while the majority seem Tracked on: BlogBites (64.71.187.10) at 2004 08 23 04:16:48
Pharyngula

#5454: PZ Myers — 08/23 at 10:00 AM
It's a nice image of the Republican party flailing, except that when you look at who controls the executive, judiciary, and legislative branches of our government, it doesn't jibe very well with reality.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#5455: Lynn S — 08/23 at 10:01 AM
That's very strange. It seems exactly the opposite to me. I've never liked Republicans. They're mostly greedy, mean-spirited friends of the wealthy and in the last decade or two have begun to pander to the worst of religious extremists. Republicans are scary. And yet, in the last few years it seems like the Democrats have gone off the deep end. I feel betrayed and left out in the cold. There's absolutely no one I can feel comfortable voting for.

#5456: PZ Myers — 08/23 at 10:30 AM
I don't understand that at all. What exactly did the Democrats do that was so alienating?

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#5458: — 08/23 at 10:46 AM
Naw, there's serious splits in past Repub voters PZ. Bush is going to get creamed in November if my local area is any indication. And I live in the most hotly contested, important swing state, in one of the four most influential counties, in this election.

BTW-Republicans weren't always a cover for religious fanatics, paranoid secrecy, government corruption, and greedy CEO wannabees.

Initially, I became a Republican because I liked the idea of small government in matters of domestic policy, strong defense, emphasis on technology and the accural of venture capital, as well as fiscal responsibility. (For example in Austin I saw retail property owners really get screwed by environmentalists who found endangered salamanders in caves on their property and blocked them from building on it. That meant the property was worthless, they couldn't sell it or build their retiirement home on it, but they had to keep paying taxes on it. I saw greens effectively block road construction AFTER the main road had been built which meant no access roads and resulted in severe gridlock which the city has never recovered from)

Needless to say those republican ideals have been pretty effectively hijacked and reversed by this WH.
The policy on Canadian Drugs is just one small example: Barring competetion with a close ally and business partner, while protecting artifically high prices for large corporations, is 180 degrees against traditional Republican principles.
My fear is not that Bush will win, he will lose, barring a political windfall; you can take that to the bank. My concern is that it will be a landslide in which Kerry and the dems will get the crazy idea that they have some kind of 'mandate'.
We're really the safest when the Congress and the WH are under different parties, because it's a lot harder for them to screw us when they're being sniped constantly. So while I'm going to vote against Bush, I'll be in here and elsewhere nitpicking Kerry incessantly after the election.

#5459: PZ Myers — 08/23 at 10:53 AM
I'm a tried and true Democrat, and I'm planning to nitpick and criticize Kerry nonstop, too (although, in my case it might be because he isn't liberal enough to satisfy me). It's the weird fundagelical conservatives who have the bizarre idea that electing a political leader is tantamount to anointing him as an infallible authority.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#5461: Abiola Lapite — 08/23 at 11:01 AM
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"... what else is a libertarian but a Republican without the social (conscience)?"

If dissolving the barrier between church and state and legislating against gays, foreigners and uppity women constitutes a "social conscience" in your world, then I'm more than glad to be without one.
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#5462: — 08/23 at 11:08 AM
It's the weird fundagelical conservatives who have the bizarre idea that electing a political leader is tantamount to anointing him as an infallible authority.

Funny thing is, both Bush and Osama are both convinced that God put Bush in the WH for a reason. [wink]

Well, you know how I feel about the religious right. I do battle with those ding-a-lings every day. Being an atheist Republican, I feel about as welcomed by the current GOP as a flaming homosexual contemplating sexual reassignment surgey and hoping to get the gov to foot the bill.
They've about driven away guys like me with their freaky voodoo bullshit. I'm giving them one more chance to get rid of the current bozo and do the right thing, and then I'm going to sign up for the Donkey. I empathize with the old style libbers like Brayton, but that's just not realistically in the political cards for now.

#5514: Uthar Wynn — 08/24 at 06:51 PM
"I don't understand that at all. What exactly did the Democrats do that was so alienating?"

You know what the funny thing is? He's dead serious. He really doesn't know...

#5515: PZ Myers — 08/24 at 07:36 PM
I've already asked you once: name one thing.

Still waiting...

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#5543: — 08/25 at 02:13 PM
"For example in Austin I saw retail property owners really get screwed by environmentalists who found endangered salamanders in caves on their property"

Ok, I'll bite. Two points:

1) from a large scale environmental viewpoint, the salamanders don't matter. The spotted owl doesn't matter, rainforest doesn't matter. However, from my (and presumably your) perspective, human beings do matter. And if we can't save a salamander, or an owl, or what have you, what chance to we have to save ourselves. Exinctions are the rule, not the exception, and the same rules apply to us that do to other creatures on earth. Life will be fine no matter what we do; humans are not that powerful (might take a few million years to recover, but that's nothing from nature's perspecive). We certainly have the power to render the earth uninhabitable for ourselves, however, and we seem hell-bent on doing it.

2) I'm all for small government and low taxes, but there are things that are part of the public domain no matter who owns them, and the government (read "the people") have a right to defend them. We've come (largely)to agree that air and water are part of this (though not without considerable resistance); it seems that people how blindly buy up lots of cheap virgin land in the hope of making a quick buck are taking a risk that they should be able to calculate. Developers, miners, and loggers have done immeasurable damage to the great majority of this continent (and this world). Why shouln't us greens be able to say "fine, you got 99% of it, now leave well enought alone!"?

Speaking of Austin, look at Town Lake - you think the developers wouldn't like to build luxury condos all along that shoreline? Would that be in the public interest? Or does the existance of a beautiful, relatively clean natural area (crawling with lovely turtles) in the heart of a major metro area serve it better?

I'd support the government buying up protected lands from these (not very careful) developers (if they could only buy at or below orginal cost - don't want to build in a profit motive) but that would cost tax dollars (which would send everyone into a tizzy). Wouldn't to make more sense for these developers to figure in the cost of ESA problems the same way they do with trash removal (since the damn government won't let the dump it in the river anymore) or superfund cleanup (since the damn goverment won't let them just build low-income housing on a toxic waste dump anymore)? Christ, we gave away the forests, the oil, the coal, the airwaves, all in the name of progress, and not people are pissed 'cause we want to hold onto a handful of salamanders?

I'll stop now before I drift even further into incoherent rantings. Don't get me started on ANWR, the greedy bastards.

As for the Democrats - They've all turned into moderate republicans. I'll stil vote for 'em... But it would be nice to see an actual liberal again. Maybe before I'm dead.

#5577: — 08/26 at 02:10 PM

By the way, why would YOU give a damn about moderate politics? You're about as far left as they come...

Coming from the UK, this is hilarious. PZ would be a centrist voter here, I think, certainly not left-leaning, and were he a citizen of a Western European country, I think he'd probably count as a rightist voter. He'd definitely be a rightist voter in, say, Sweden.

The US has no 'left' by the standards of European countries --- and before you sputter and write them all off as effete impracticalists, that's the majority of the world's mature democracies, who before they were democracies were definitely not effete --- they spent much of the last millennium attacking each other. I boggled at the outburst of anti-French stuff in the US last year: France is famously martial in its traditions.

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Sunday, August 22, 2004

It wasn't liberals who killed the Middle

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