I'm going to superstylize the numbers here to make a point.
A hugely common trope since the election is that the Republican Party has been permanently discredited for being optimistic in the last few days of the election, for not believing the polls that showed, on average, Obama with a 51-49 lead in the two-party vote, and for not, therefore, giving up or something. This just proves Republicans are against Science, because polling is the essence of Science and can never go wrong.
A hugely common trope since the election is that the Republican Party has been permanently discredited for being optimistic in the last few days of the election, for not believing the polls that showed, on average, Obama with a 51-49 lead in the two-party vote, and for not, therefore, giving up or something. This just proves Republicans are against Science, because polling is the essence of Science and can never go wrong.
What's been overlooked is that when all the votes were added up nationally, the polls were wrong by a two point margin, just as Romney hoped. Polling is actually pretty hard to get right, and unexpected new developments can throw it off. Unfortunately for Romney, the polls' bias was in favor of Romney not against: Obama actually won 52-48.
In general, people love horse race analyses, even though it's not really very important. What was Romney supposed to do with three days left in the election? Give up?
The vastly bigger issue is that the Republicans don't understand the long term fundamentals of their electoral position: their voters represent the core of America (on multiple dimensions: married v. single, white v. nonwhite, and so forth) while the Democrats represent the various fringes. What they cannot survive is a worldview in which demonizing the core of America is the default response in the culture.
The vastly bigger issue is that the Republicans don't understand the long term fundamentals of their electoral position: their voters represent the core of America (on multiple dimensions: married v. single, white v. nonwhite, and so forth) while the Democrats represent the various fringes. What they cannot survive is a worldview in which demonizing the core of America is the default response in the culture.
I have a friend who's a big believer in global warming "science."
ReplyDeleteHe's always sending me articles about how rapidly the Earth is warming.
I always respond, "see the science was wrong."
Apparently if the science says that mean temperatures will increase by 0.4 degrees over a couple decades and temperatures actually increase by a degree this year, then the science is super-correct in his mind.
One thing to remember is how big of screw up George Bush was as president - 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, and finally the financial meltdown. Americans have yet to forgive the Republicans for nominating and supporting such an incompetent president. Romney is not an especially bad candidate and his positions were pretty generic for a Republican, but his whole canidacy (and also McCain's) was tainted by Bush. If Republicans want to reenter the White House, they'll need some serious rebranding.
ReplyDeleteStrangely, very few seem to think this way. The consensus among the elite Republicans is that everything is fine. No need to change the platform or disown Bush's legacy. All they need to do is stop being so mean to Hispanics and blacks. Which makes sense, from the perspective of Republican politicians. Why blame yourself when you can blame all the racists in your base(who drove away all those family values, neoconservative, pro-tax cut Hispanics)?
Another comment. The issue here is that globalization and corporatization are putting massive downward pressure on wages and domestic job creation. Some combination of tax hikes, spending cuts (especially to defense), financial regulation, trade barriers (to discourage outsourcing), unions, immigration cuts, border fence, public sector investment (along the lines of the East Asian economies), and minimum wage hikes are what's needed to help the average working American. However, due to a combination of powerful special interests (politicians, finance, big business, diversitycrats, neconservatives), this is unlikely to ever happen.
Instead you get people like Marco Rubio talking about "worker shortages" and how the H-1B visa cap needs to rise from 65,000 to 300,000 per year.
The sad part of all this is that even if the Republicans do somehow retake the Whitehouse and the Senate, I doubt much will change. They'll just cut taxes, deregulate, and kowtow to the neoconservative/Israeli lobby. Don't expect any Republican sympathy if your family income is below $200K/yr (unless you happen to be an Israeli settler on Palestinian land).
"What they cannot survive is a worldview in which demonizing the core of America is the default response in the culture."
ReplyDeleteThis phrase ends one of the finest paragraphs ever written about our lively, vibrant, diverse tyranny and the cowardice and deviance that has facilitated it.
it is not possible, not at all possible, that GOP pols, like Dem pols, serve another master, not the master of the people, but the master of money. That reflexive anti-white culture also serves the interests of those who have money. The GOP pols could not care less about the future of the GOP, and likewise Dem pols. They care making money, about power, about keeping and getting both. And they have no intention of really doing anything (other than lip service) about the anti-white culture.
ReplyDeleteOne of your little conceit that helps keep your readers interested is pretending that there is no division of interests.
Oh nonsense, Bush was far from incompetent. In fact, we were lucky to have him. History will be kind to GWB. Obama will go down as the incompetent puppet of the Boomer neo-communists and foreign powers that attempted to destroy us. Let us hope that it is reported that they failed. Sounds like you are drinking the Left wing Koolaid there.
ReplyDeleteBush was subject to a propaganda barrage we have not seen sine the Nazis. He deserved none of it.
A case in point is your barking about Katrina. A wholly manufactured crisis by the Left. Just what was wrong with Bush's response? If there is a fault with that, it should be laid at the door of the corrupt Democrat machine in LA. One need to look no further than the recent events on NY or the floods in IA or TN to see truly inept handling by the Feds under Obama. Pure Democrat agit-prop and electioneering, and you should be ashamed of yourself for reapting it.
911 is "Bush's "fault"? He handled the crisis extremely well, That is why he was voted into office. That is why he was re-elected, for Pete's sake. Here you betray yourself aa a (paid?) democrat troll
Iraq? The democrats betrayed us just like in Vietnam. They cannot help themselves--they a traitors to the bone. They politicized and undermined it wherever and whenever they could.
Just what has Obama done that was so different? How was OBL caught but through the framework bush put into place?
The "Financial Crisis"? This was cause by the Democrats screwing around with the housing market, and it is more than likely that that bubble was purposely popped as an October Surprise that election year. Again, it may take a decade or two to find out the real truth about that one. At any rate, the initial scope of TARP was pushed WAY out of proportion by Obama. If they would have stuck to the original design, things would have wound down by now. Obama seized upon this to Rip off the taxpayer for over a trillion bucks to hand out to democrat special interest groups as a "Stimulus". It was just pure looting. And remember, those money center banks are run by Liberal Democrats.
Obama institutionalized voter fraud in the last election and spent an entire term buying off voter blocks. I imagine that if the country survived, in a decade or too it will come out. This is the real cause of the defeat, not "the culture".
If the GOP wants back in, they need to stop listening to people like you, who are either RINOs or Dems in disguise, and start calling the Democrats out for what they are: Marxist-Leninist traitors bend on destroying all that is good in this nation. They Democrat ought to be tossed in jail, not imitated.
Anon. at 4:55, you "analysis" is flawed. In fact, it is cant.
America as a whole would love to have Bush back in office.
Hey Steve, interesting that you chose to focus on the popular vote and not the electoral college vote -- where Romney was clearly doomed and where people were being most delusional.
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't you include the fact that the polling averages (or Silver's method) called all the states correctly, except for maybe Florida?
And why didn't you mention that Silver explicitly warns people that there can be a variety of outcomes and he's only predicting the chance Obama will win?
Nobody says Republicans are anti-science, only that Republicans ridicule scientific evidence that could diminish corporate profits.
ReplyDeleteWhat they cannot survive is a worldview in which demonizing the core of America is the default response in the culture.
ReplyDeleteIndeed.
Can the Democrats even maintain a country? Or does the parasite briefly revel in outliving its host?
Sam Francis spent 25 saying the Republicans -- or, preferably, their successors -- ought to stand and fight for the core population of America. He was demonized and saw his career destroyed for this.
ReplyDeleteI think the problem was that so many were belligerent in claiming that Romney would win. I saw more than one article looking gleefully forward to Silver's humiliation. A lot of blowhards got embarrassed - sometimes the same blowhards who predicted a cakewalk in Iraq but whose careers never suffered for it.
ReplyDeleteNobody says Republicans are anti-science,
ReplyDeleteOf course they do. I was just discussing with a friend the other day about how successful this meme has been. Yes, I know that it was mostly based on the correlation between Republican-ism and religiosity. But, still, the depth to which this has permeated people's thought-processes is remarkable.
Also, the ignorance that the average person has with regard to Christianity's overwhelmingly positive impact on the search for scientific truth is really depressing.
Bush and "deficits don't matter" Cheney were a disaster for the country and for conservatives. What I wouldn't give to go back to the year 2000 for a do-over. 12 trillion dollars and 30 million illegal immigrants ago. Gas for $1. China not yet a major creditor or military threat. Arriving to the airport 15 minutes before takeoff with no TSA groping. Warrants required for tapping phone calls. Banks that still paid interest on deposits. We've lost so much in 13 years.
ReplyDeleteAmerica as a whole would love to have Bush back in office.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you taking? I like to get some.
I agree on Katrina, that was unfair to Bush. But he was a major screw up when it came foreign policy. Bombing the crap out of the camps in Afghanistan and going in for the kill would have been in order. Going in halfheartedly and then diverting the main effort to attack Iraq was a huge screw up. It might be the biggest strategic blunder we have ever made.
Additionally, he wasted a lot of blood and treasure on long occupations that had little to no hope for success. Even if the democrats would have been on board, it would not have turned Iraq and Afghanistan into Switzerland.
I will give him credit in not listening to crazy McCain and getting us involved in a shooting war with Russia in 2008.
And as far as the financial crisis, Steve has pointed out that Bush's crazy ownership society, as well as his disregard for enforcing border controls, helped lead to the mortgage meltdown. That issue is not all on the dems.
And let's not forget Bush was all for population replacement. That bastard tried to push through amnesty twice, and did little to control the border. He could have shut down muslim immigration altogether following 9-11, and put tighter controls on our Mexican border. But he let a good crisis go to waste and never made a dent in our demographic decline.
In case you haven't been to this site, most on this blog believe demography is destiny, and view the massive demographic change of the USA as the biggest problem we face. So any guy like Bush who promotes this will be held in contempt.
"What (the GOP) cannot survive is a worldview in which demonizing the core of America is the default response in the culture."
ReplyDeleteI'm not so certain that the GOP can't survive this. The coalition of fringes that make up the Democrats and also the media will persist in demonizing the core of America. What the GOP can't survive is their own apparent commitment to embrace this worldview themselves.
Why should core voters elect a party inimical to their interests? Why should they elect a party that as apologetic about who their base is? Why should they elect a party that won't fight for them and takes them for granted?
The vastly bigger issue is that the Republicans don't understand the long term fundamentals of their electoral position...
ReplyDeleteNo, the vastly bigger issue is that the Republicans DO understand. And don't seem to care. It must be all that Scotch-drinking and Irish coffee.
Reagan was the last Republican who could make the white working class feel a part of the "core" politically. Bush 41 got enough of them in '88, but a bad economy made them flee in '92. Bush 43 got enough in '00, and the Iraq war kept them in for '04, but the occupation went badly, and the rising economy made it harder for the white working class to buy nicer houses, so they abandoned the "core" in '06 and '08.
ReplyDeleteThere was no way that Romney could make the white working class feel that he was for them, since he isn't really. His policies might help them, but that's not what Romney seems to really care about. Romney cares about well-paid professionals and "little guy" businessmen, not factory workers or construction workers.
Lots of the white working class are, or want to be, part of the "core" of America, and many of them realize that what's good for (non-politically-connected) business is good for them, too, but that appeal has to be made directly to them; something Romney didn't do.
Steve:
ReplyDeleteThe electoral vote was pretty one-sided, and that was predictable, it tracked with state polling numbers. What I remember is:
a. Several pundits attacking Nate Silver on the grounds that all this number crunching wasn't really as useful as their deep knowledge of politics. (This was really funny, since pundits are notorious for being routinely wrong in their predictions, without any consequences at all.)
b. Various right wing pundits spreading the meme that the election was a slam dunk for Romney, despite all the data to the contrary. Karl Rove and George Will are two that come to mind, but they were far from alone.
c. Many people on the right end of the blogosphere and commentariat echoing those two lines.
Now, here's the thing: when a bunch of "deep thinkers" got us into the Iraq war based on their predictions of what would happen, and it turned out that their predictions were all horribly wrong, there were generally no consequences for them. The media are mostly memoryless, so just because you got ten big predictions wrong last week doesn't mean they're not going to listen to your predictions this week. (Go ask Tom Friedman.)
But I'm not memoryless, and neither should anyone else be, if they intend to understand the world. If Tom Friedman is wrong every time he opens his mouth, or if Karl Rove gets on TV and lies to everyone to push his own partisan or financial interests, then that's worth remembering. The next time Tom Friedman and Karl Rove start telling us about the world, we ought to remember how that worked out for us last time. (Karl Rove's predictions of a permanent Republican majority, and his idea that winning over Hispanics was the key to the GOP's future,might also have been good things to remember the last time anyone was tempted to take him seriously.)
This isn't about Democrats vs Republicans--both will lie when it suits them, both are riddled with ideological blind spots. etc. It's about remembering when someone bullshits you, so you don't keep getting taken in. Just because the MSM has some media version of the blue wall of silence, and won't call one another on their previous bullshit, doesn't mean we should do the same.
If Tom Friedman shows up on the TV, I'll probably change the channel. The same for Karl Rove. They've earned it.
Anthony:
ReplyDeleteA thought experiment: Suppose the GOP faces the choice of having an equally brutal political fight for one of the two following policies:
a. A family-friendly tax policy--an increased deduction for kids, an end to the marriage penalty, deductions for private school tuition and daycare.
b. A top-friendly tax policy--eliminating inheritance taxes, lowering the top tax rates, ensuring favorable tax treatment for oil companies and hedge funds, lowering the capital gains tax.
Which of these two will the GOP fight for, and which won't they fight for? It seems to me we have a natural experiment already run for us--even in an election where things looked pretty bad for the GOP, we didn't see them spending much political capital on familes. Married whites are pretty much their core voters, but we don't contribute vast sums of money to their campaigns and we don't fund many think tanks. And that's reflected in the GOP's proposed poliies.
I must say this is the most interesting and intelligent set of commentary on the Internet. I find myself agreeing with most of what has been posted, even when the commentators are disagreeing with one another. I'll be back, and hope everyone participating will continue to do so.
ReplyDeletea. A family-friendly tax policy--an increased deduction for kids, an end to the marriage penalty, deductions for private school tuition and daycare.
ReplyDeleteNo, no and no. This will push rich white liberal birthrates up and thank goodness it has come down from 3-4 kids a generation ago to 1-2 kids in the current.
b. A top-friendly tax policy--eliminating inheritance taxes, lowering the top tax rates, ensuring favorable tax treatment for oil companies and hedge funds, lowering the capital gains tax.
No, no, no and no. Take this up to the liberal intelligentsia. They have this HIGH-LOW alliance against the MIDDLE.
The super rich liberals take the money from the middle class and give it to the sons of Obama. They also use middle class money to bail out their banks, educational centers, media centers and legal professions.
That's why liberals always assume that we are hypocrites. Because THEY are hypocrites and love projecting their tendencies unto us.
I didn't vote for Romney. I ran into a concrete pillar that morning in my car. First time I haven't voted since Nixon. So I guess I'm one of those responsible. If I had been more enthusiastic for Mr. Romney I would have sucked it up and hobbled to the polls.
ReplyDeleteRomney expected to win because he expected that the 'silent majority' would speak. Then as now to criticize Obama is to be assumed to be a stinking racist. I also thought that the hidden opposition to Obama would be revealed in the privacy of the voting booth. Wrong.
A year or so ago I asked a supermarket checker what he thought of "Quantitative Easing". I did that because he was talking about the huge increases he was seeing in food prices. Of course, he didn't know what I was talking about. No one connected Obama's inflationary policies with their experienced inflation.
Similarly people who complained about high gas prices seldom realized that Obama had appointed an Energy Czar who advocated much higher gas prices for Americans.
I think I now am beginning to see signs that the honeymoon is over. Obama is no longer being given the benefit of the doubt in all disputes. The American people are still not ready to hold him accountable for prolonging the recession but maybe soon...
Obama is not a nice guy. He's peevish and ungracious. He holds grudges and is immodest. He's not the sort of person I would want in my house for dinner. Sooner or later his unattractive personal characteristics will be recognized. Then maybe he will lose his Svengali-like power over the press and the electorate.
Albertosaurus
Some combination of tax hikes, spending cuts (especially to defense),...
ReplyDeleteYou do understand that deep defense cuts will put a lot of civilian, union, hourly defense workers out on the street?
... trade barriers (to discourage outsourcing)...
What is the iSteve creed re trade protectionism? Should proper iStevies be for or agin' free free free trade? Steve, let's have the great debate.
... unions ... Unions including the SEIU?
... public sector investment (along the lines of the East Asian economies)...
Similar to Japan's public sector investments?
Some combination of tax hikes, spending cuts (especially to defense),...
ReplyDeleteYou do understand that deep defense cuts will put a lot of civilian, union, hourly defense workers out on the street?
... trade barriers (to discourage outsourcing)...
What is the iSteve creed re trade protectionism? Should proper iStevies be for or agin' free free free trade? Steve, let's have the great debate.
... unions ... Unions including the SEIU?
... public sector investment (along the lines of the East Asian economies)...
Similar to Japan's public sector investments?
"Various right wing pundits spreading the meme that the election was a slam dunk for Romney, despite all the data to the contrary."
ReplyDeleteExactly. It wasn't "Do our best and we still have a chance!" It was "We are guaranteed to win and anyone who says otherwise is brainwashed by the MSM."
The weird overconfidence of GOP pundits has popped up in earlier election as well. I still remember Hugh Hewitt's prediction that John Kerry would carry about five states in 2004. Of course Bush did win that year, but hardly by such a margin.
Anon 8:53:
ReplyDeleteYeah, just think what a disaster for Republicans it would be if more white middle class people got married and had kids. I mean, when have Republicans ever gotten any votes from *them*.
Anonymous W Supporter, above:
The best way to see how very right you are is to look at how well W's legacy served the Republican candidates who followed him. I mean, just look at all the time McCain and then Romney spent drawing clear parallels between themselves and the popular and successful W administration. And how well they did!
I mean, if W had left behind a disaster, I imagine some nobody could have come out of nowhere to become president on the Democratic ticket. It's a good thing W left such a wonderful legacy for the men who followed him.
[b]A case in point is your barking about Katrina. A wholly manufactured crisis by the Left. Just what was wrong with Bush's response? If there is a fault with that, it should be laid at the door of the corrupt Democrat machine in LA. One need to look no further than the recent events on NY or the floods in IA or TN to see truly inept handling by the Feds under Obama. Pure Democrat agit-prop and electioneering, and you should be ashamed of yourself for reapting it.[/b]
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, his appointee to FEMA was completely incompetent and his analysis of the situation ("heckuva job Brownie") shows how little he understood what was going on. There's enough blame to go around to Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco (both are out of office now), but it's not like Bush was some model of competence. Compare him to Romney, who really was a smart executive who understood the need to bring other competent people into an organization.
[b]911 is "Bush's "fault"? He handled the crisis extremely well, That is why he was voted into office. That is why he was re-elected, for Pete's sake. Here you betray yourself aa a (paid?) democrat troll[/b]
Read Kurt Eichenwald's column on this issue. Bush was given numerous warnings of an imminent terrorist attack from the intelligence services, but took them rather lightly. I don't know if 9/11 could've been prevented, but the Bush team really didn't take the issue seriously. The same way they didn't take anything else (immigration, spending, war, etc.) seriously.
Part of the problem was that the neoconservatives advised Bush that the terrorist threat was actually being overstated and the real threat was Saddam Hussein. So blame goes on them too..... but
part of being a good president is knowing who to trust and who to ignore. Bush, not having an even basic understanding of foreign policy or really anything else related to the job, was easily manipulated......... by neoconservatives....... by Dick Cheney........ by the Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson.....
[b]Iraq? The democrats betrayed us just like in Vietnam. They cannot help themselves--they a traitors to the bone. They politicized and undermined it wherever and whenever they could.[/b]
Let me ask you. Was Iraq worth 5000 American lives, tens of thousands injured and maimed for life, and $3 trillion? Ironically enough, the most pro-American position would've been that of Dennis Kucinich. Don't go in, but instead spend the money on economic development and heavy industry. Which, interestingly, is what countries like China do. Of course, Kucinich is probably an anti-American socialist. Why listen to him when you've got brilliant strategist like William Kristol leading you forward?
[b]Just what has Obama done that was so different? How was OBL caught but through the framework bush put into place? [/b]
Yes, Bush toppled the Taliban and eventually killed Bin Laden. He didn't do everything wrong.
[b]
ReplyDeleteThe "Financial Crisis"? This was cause by the Democrats screwing around with the housing market, and it is more than likely that that bubble was purposely popped as an October Surprise that election year. Again, it may take a decade or two to find out the real truth about that one. At any rate, the initial scope of TARP was pushed WAY out of proportion by Obama. If they would have stuck to the original design, things would have wound down by now. Obama seized upon this to Rip off the taxpayer for over a trillion bucks to hand out to democrat special interest groups as a "Stimulus". It was just pure looting. And remember, those money center banks are run by Liberal Democrats.[/b]
You might be right about the "October Surprise." Newt Gingrich claimed that the Goldman CEO Hank Paulson was involved with that. Which again underlines my point about how important competence is in an executive. The incompetent tend to get manipulated.
The subprime problem began under Clinton, but it exploded under Bush. Steve Sailer once posted a graph of the amount of subprime loans given under Bush and Clinton.
There were a lot of things that pushed us off the subprime cliff - "diversity", deregulation, corporate greed and incompetence, poor regulators, government distortion of the mortgage marke (through the CRA and Fannie/Freddie), and short-term thinking. Democrats and Republicans both have blame in this. Things were worse under Bush because he was as pro-diversity as the Democrats, but a lot more trusting on big banks and lenders.
ReplyDelete[b]
If the GOP wants back in, they need to stop listening to people like you, [/b]
When has the GOP ever listened to people like me? The last time any major Republican talked like me was Buchanan in 1996 (and 1992). Since then, people like me have been purged from the party. Now you've got people like Ayn-Randian Paul Ryan calling for voucherizing Medicare while cutting taxes...... and Rubio saying we need an amnesty and a guestworker program (to deal with the worker "SHORTAGE").
Don't worry. People like me don't run anything. Instead, you have people like "Whiskey" running our modern GOP establishment. By the way, how's that working out for?
[b]the Democrats out for what they are: Marxist-Leninist traitors bend on destroying all that is good in this nation. They Democrat ought to be tossed in jail, not imitated.[/b]
Ironically, the Democrats are not all that different from the Republicans. Both parties are pro-corporate power, pro-war, pro-immigration...... The main difference is on cultural issues like gay marriage. Remember, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards supported the Iraq war..... supported attacking Iran....... supported the idea of an amnesty and a guestworker program (to alleviate "worker shortages")........ Rather than being fringe kooks, the Democrats are hand in hand with the Republicans.
[b]Anon. at 4:55, you "analysis" is flawed. In fact, it is cant.
America as a whole would love to have Bush back in office.[/b]
This type of thinking is widespread in the Republican party. No need to turn your back on militarism, financialization, corporatization. No need to clean house and remove the fools (Rove, Cheney, the neoconservatives). No, everything is fine. Just defeat Obama, get spending in line, and everything is fixed.
There's a need for Republicans to introspect. Understand that a lot of their policies are anti-worker and even anti-American. Conservatism can't just be tax cuts, war, deregulation, and Israel. There's got to be something in it for the working man. Heck, even Reagan and Nixon solicited (and got) union support for their policies. Today's conservatives are so out of whack with the common man that they bash unions, bash Occupy Wall Street, and bash Pat Buchanan (who incidentally served in both the Nixon and Reagan administration).
Working class Americans came out in droves for Nixon and Reagan. You think they'd ever do the same for any modern day Republican? Not really, because modern Republicans have lost touch.
Conservatism shouldn't be about supporting Big Business or Israel or cutting taxes. It's got to be a defense of the values and livelihood of common salt of the earth masses, who are under assault from immigration, globalization, and corporatization.
What they cannot survive is a worldview in which demonizing the core of America is the default response in the culture.
ReplyDeleteWhich of course is exactly the case.
Most iSteve readers are anti-free trade. You should read Pat Buchanan's book the Great Betrayal.
ReplyDeleteUnions have historically been anti-immigration, anti-free trade, and pro-America. SEIU is the worst example you could pick. For example, AFL-CIO was, until 1999, anti-amnesty and it still is anti-guestworker. Bush's immigration push in 2007 was killed by Senator Byron Dorgan (Democrat) and anti-guestworker unions.
Maybe the case is politically motivated?
ReplyDeleteApparently, dear old M.I.T. wanted to sic the law on Mr. Swartz:
From the New Yorker article:
He did not hack into the M.I.T. system—he didn’t have to. M.I.T.’s network is open to anyone on campus, whether or not they are part of the university, so anyone on campus has access to jstor, too. He wrote a script that instructed his computer to download articles continuously, something that was forbidden by jstor’s terms of service. When this violation was detected, and requests coming from his computer were denied, he spoofed the computer’s address, fooling the jstor servers into thinking that subsequent requests were coming from somewhere else. This happened several times. M.I.T. traced the requests to his laptop, which he had hidden in an unlocked closet, and installed a hidden camera there that recorded him entering the closet, covering his face with a bike helmet. He was arrested after leaving the closet. The police took away his shoes and put him in a cell. Soon after his arrest, he returned the data he had taken, and jstor considered the matter settled. M.I.T., however, coöperated with the prosecution, despite many efforts, internal and external, to dissuade it.
In other words, Mr. Swartz not only messed with JSTOR. Swartz also cheated and thereby damaged M.I.T.'s casual, open knowledge-sharing ethos.
And no, downloading millions of JSTOR docs is not the same as time-hallowed student pranks and traditions such as stealing a cannon from Cal Tech.
Unions have historically been anti-immigration, anti-free trade, and pro-America.
ReplyDeleteHistorically, the Democrat Party is the free trade party and Republicans were protectionist. Abe Lincoln advocated tariffs on imports. T. Roosevelt: "Thank God I am not a free trader."
SEIU is the worst example you could pick.
So what do you think should be done about the SEIU?
AFL-CIO was, until 1999, anti-amnesty and it still is anti-guestworker.
Is that supposed to win our hearts and minds over to the AFL-CIO? Is that union now pro-amnesty?
What do you think about government employee unions? You do know that F.D.R. was opposed to government employee unions?
Responding to:
ReplyDelete"Nobody says Republicans are anti-science,
JeremiahJohnbalaya said...
"Of course they do. I was just discussing with a friend the other day about how successful this meme has been. Yes, I know that it was mostly based on the correlation between Republican-ism and religiosity. But, still, the depth to which this has permeated people's thought-processes is remarkable.
Also, the ignorance that the average person has with regard to Christianity's overwhelmingly positive impact on the search for scientific truth is really depressing.
Have noticed both things and completely agree with your take.
I remember hearing Rachel Maddow on Air America about 8 years ago and all she did was talk about how the Democrats were the "smart party," and that Republicans were the party of stupid, illiterate redneck Christers who believe in superstition instead of science, or something to that effect (and she kept on saying it over and over).
It seemed over the top at the time, but it's pretty much become the conventional wisdom over the last 4-5 years.
BTW, it doesn't help when Republicans keep saying "we've got to stop being the stupid party."
They obviously mean that the Republicans have to quit shooting themselves in the foot, quit letting Democrats outmaneuver them and quit walking right into every trap that the Democrats set. But when the average person hears Republicans call themselves the "stupid party," they think they're agreeing with Rachael Maddow's characterization (and Bill Maher's, Jon Stewart's, Stephen Colbert's, Michael Moore's, etc.).
That's why the national media gave lots of attention to Bobby Jindal when he said "we've got to quit being the stupid party."
And Jindal was probably stupid enough to think the media's sudden (but short-lived) showering of attention on that one line from his speech was a big positive for himself and for his party.
Personality, tax deductions for families would push up Mexican births not whites. The deductions have little impact on birth rates. People found out that smaller families tend to do better than larger families on the whole.
ReplyDeleteUnions have historically been anti-immigration, anti-free trade, and pro-America. SEIU is the worst example you could pick. For example, AFL-CIO was, until 1999, anti-amnesty and it still is anti-guestworker. Bush's immigration push in 2007 was killed by Senator Byron Dorgan (Democrat) and anti-guestworker unions.
ReplyDeleteThis is true, a lot of the Blue Dog dems were kick out of office.
If the GOP wants back in, they need to stop listening to people like you, who are either RINOs or Dems in disguise, and start calling the Democrats out for what they are: Marxist-Leninist traitors bend on destroying all that is good in this nation. They Democrat ought to be tossed in jail, not imitated.
ReplyDeleteWel, you are correct on Obama looting but the GOP has there problems too and the so-called Marxist-Leninist stuff about Obama is basically crapped since he is just a regular liberal-lefty he is not Frank Marshall Davis. The right needs to get away from this view and think that the demographic view of lots of Hispanics is going to move the country further to the left anyways. The Tea Party nonsense over Socialism instead of the flooding of the country with a lot of foreingers is what is important.
Well, I would take some medocare cuts but Repbulcians like Ryan support Hispanic immmirgants that will caused an expansion of welfare programs for kids and low income adults. Ryan needs to address that as well.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that Republicans need to target just married couples like Steve. Republicans missed out on what demographers like William Frey are seeing. That older whites that no longer have kids vote for Republicans since they are tired of spending money on other people's kids mainly Hispanics. He sees the generational spending difference. Social Secuirty and medocare for aging whites versus a lot of spending on schools for younger minorties but the Republcians like Ryan want to cut old people out first and expand the younger minority population.
ReplyDeleteJust as an aside, is there any useful difference between the folks now calling Obama a Marxist and the folks formerly calling W a facist? I don't see much. Those aren't statements about either man's policies or (largely unknowable) heartfelt hidden beliefs, they're magic word arguments intended to make people stop thinking.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Republicans and science, Republicans do slightly better on quizzes of scientific knowledge than Democrats, probably mostly for demographic reasons. (Republicans are mostly white and male, and white men know more sciene than most other groups.). Republicans also have a broadly positive view of science. The report from the Pew Center combining a quiz of simple science questions and surveys of the public and scientists is here. (That links to the part of the report summarizing how different groups did at the science quiz, but the whole report is worth reading.). As far as I can tell, the media image of Republicans as science haters is as authentic as the image of John McCain as a maverick outsider or Barack Obama as a postracial intellectual superstar.
My experience is that many, perhaps most, media tropes and assumptions about the world are demonstrably wrong, and that they are still almost never challenged in the media, once established. Thanks to those media tropes, we all "know" vast anounts of stuff that isn't so.