Registrant:
Robert Freedman
3824 NW 60th Street
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73112-1460
United States

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Domain Name: PALINWURZELBACHER2012.COM
Created on: 30-Oct-08
Expires on: 30-Oct-09
Last Updated on: 30-Oct-08

Still, here's hoping it happens.

Greetings From Idiot America

Creationism. Intelligent Design. Faith-based this. Trust-your-gut that. There's never been a better time to espouse, profit from, and believe in utter, unadulterated crap. And the crap is rising so high, it's getting dangerous.

Excellent piece here.

It's a few years old. Americans have turned away from the idiocy somewhat, and thrown the republicans out, but they're still a big force.

So socialism isn't that popular a political position in this country. When a politician says something that sounds socialist, that's not generally a good thing.

"Socialism" is a very vague term, that different people use in different ways. In the sense you appear to be using it, it means just about any welfare-state policy, including social security, medicare, unemployment insurance, the progressive income tax and so on. This is common in libertarian and movement-conservative circles. Hey, fair enough! I have been that guy.

Problem is, that kind of "socialism" is wildly popular in the United States, which is why six Republican presidents starting with Eisenhower have left the structure of the American welfare state substantially intact. And indeed, why Bush II's downfall began in 2005 when he tried to set partial privatization of social security in motion.

So, no. "Socialism" as political scientists use the term - government ownership of the means of production - is not popular. "Socialism" as conservatives and libertarians use the term is so popular as to be politically unassailable.

If the exchange was harmless for Obama, why were people so eager to dig up dirt on Wurzelbacher?

This is one of those rhetorical questions that are more interesting as real questions, actually. I think we have to start by recognizing that "people" is a divisible noun here.

If the exchange was harmless for Obama, why were people so eager to dig up dirt on Wurzelbacher? Or was it just standard procedure for government officials to pull records on everyone Obama met along a rope line?

It was a slip up because it struck many people as advocating some form of socialism and opened him up to criticism from Republicans on that front.

Please understand I mean this in the nicest possible way: So? Also "many" is a funny-bunny word here.

There are apprentices and journeymen and Masters.

Now, back to discussion, but wanted to put this "plastic turkey" to sleep.

Wurzelbacher didn't become famous for misunderstanding Obama's tax policy. He became famous because Obama mentioned spreading the wealth around in his response. Without that slip up, Wurzelbacher would have likely remained in obscurity.

So Obama's reference to "spreading the wealth around" was a "slip up?" That must mean you think he would have won the election by more if he hadn't said it. What's your estimate? 55% instead of 53%? 60%? How much did this "slip up" cost him?

Steve, I don't have numbers to back u my conjecture but I think ithe anti-intellectualism involved with Repubs has more to do with academic dominance by the Left. Hard to trust an academic spouting off Austrian economics on the off chance that he may say something outrageous about Jews, or, yes, abortion or some other cultural issue. BTW something I don't quite like is the lumping of SoCons versus TheoCons. Two very different worldviews and goals, man.

Uhhhmmm what?

Austrians and Republicans don't mix well. Think paleo-con when you think Austrian (for the most part). Most opposed Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most despised Bush's expansion of the State.

However there are economists out there who might make a better fit with Republicans. For example the University of Minnesota.

And yes, my point was precisely that the Republicans see academia as a haven for liberals and hence you can't trust an academic becuase they are all liberals.

PD,

I think Steve Verdon is being a little hard on the Republicans. For one thing, public opinion polls show fairly consistent support of some form of creationism, so there is little incentive or need to get that issue right.

I fail to see how this rebuts my point. If anything it underscores it. The Republicans see these poll results, note that most people go with the ingnorant/anti-intellectual view and so they adopt it as part of their party platform. Either that, or they are ignorant/anti-intellectual outright. Either way you have a party supporting an ignorant/anti-intellectual viewpoint.

Now we see them trotting out Joe W. here to talk on economics and the current economic problems. Color me a big skeptical of his ability to grasp the actual problems here. But who knows, a broken clock is right at least twice a day so maybe he will get it right.

I think there is a longer thread of populism in the Republican party that values practical experience over academic. It was in the Eisenhower/Stevenson campaign, and it was in Nixon's cynical use of credentials to diffuse liberal criticism of his SCOTUS picks.

We saw it last year when Republicans faced with the TARP bill went back to their communities and asked local lenders if lending was freezing up.

And given that Obama is a technocrat, whose vulnerabilities are within the populist segment of his party and the country, I expect more populism from the Republicans. It's the part of the plate that Obama is showing.

That said, the fact that he appears to be seriously addressing congressional staffers on economic issues is a bid–sad. Surely the Republican Party has actual economic advisors they can turn to, with education, expertise and everything.

I think it is fair to say that part of the Republican Party's problem is that right now the people in charge of the party are anti-academia. After all that is where liberals live, right? So you can't trust the professors...which is where you tend to find most economics experts. And even the one's not in academia went through academia.

I recall once watching Rush Limbaugh when he had his television show. He was going on and on about how the Fed and Alan Greenspan were concerned about the extremely low unemployment rate. That it was "bad" with the implication being it was actually a good thing and that Greenspan was a dolt. Nevermind that really low unemployment can be a precursor to higher inflation...which if Greenspan did nothing about and we ended up with higher inflation Limbaugh would probably be on his little hobby horse about that rocking back and forth at a furious pace as he blathered on about the idiocy of Greenspan. Never mind that these nerdy economists actually have a concept for this NAIRU.

Bottomline, the current people in charge of the Republican Party are anti-intellectual. Probably stems from the Religious Right/Social Conservatives. Look at their views on evolutionary theory. Totally anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-evidence. Pretty sad really. A party that appears to basing a large part of its platform on ignorance.