Sympathy is for hypocrites (like Matt Yglesias)
As you’ve no doubt heard, Matt Yglesias recently bought a townhouse. I know! Important news! He also paid a tidy sum for it, which means that he’s required, by the laws of this great nation Twitter, to disavow everything he’s ever written about progressive politics. As a property owner, he can’t espouse liberal beliefs any longer because he’s a property owner. That makes perfect sense if, as those on the right believe, all politics are personal. Because Yglesias can only be a hypocrite for purchasing an expensive home in a buyer’s market if you believe that class sympathies can only be extended to people in the same class as the sympathizer.
And if you believe that, as many conservatives do, you’ve sacrificed the very concept of principled belief to the satisfaction of playing “gotcha” politics. Which is all well and good so long as you don’t want people to believe you’re capable of understanding — much less possessing — principled beliefs.
It always struck me as odd how conservatives believe that, because a man doesn’t give up all his earthly possessions, he can’t be a liberal, but then claim they are Christians.
Don’t you know, because I leave the country once a year and enjoy a decent beer, I am a hypocrite every time I talk about organized labor.
Dios Mio! I can only imagine what I must be, given that I vacation in foreign lands!
Hey, they can still shame fags and bemoan abortion all day long, as Jesus did. All that other Marxy shit was just made up by a some atheist lib like Bob Drinan or something.
Excellent point.
It’s going to go completely over their heads.
Has Matt Yglesias ever actually declared property to be a myth?
Chance that he actually did: 0%. Chance that somewhere in one of those links, a quote is taken out of context, altered, and then wilfully misread? You do the math.
A tweeted hashtag isn’t a full argument, but his #mythofownership hashtag certainly seems like a (light-hearted) incorporation by reference of the argument of the Nagel and Murphy book by that name.
I think that argument is wrong, and I think Matt believes it to be right. Doesn’t make the “hypocrisy”-mongering anything other than stupid.
I do hope that LGM commentators will remember this is a stupid form of argument the next time they feel the urge to say [Beavis]“huh-huh, that libertarian hasn’t moved to Somalia and still drives on public roads, huh-huh.” [/Beavis] But even if they don’t, it’s still a stupid form of argument, and the Yglesias-haters linked to in the post are saying stupid things.
Not for nothing, but that is clearly [Butthead] _ [/Butthead].
Beat me to it.
Correction noted and appreciated!
I only take time to correct the really important stuff.
I really enjoy that argument. It’s fun! And it’s ordinarily a response to a libertarian asserting something at least as silly. When used to its fullest it’s not about hypocrisy as much as it’s about the desirability of places with exceedingly limited government. I promise, though, that the next time I’m tempted I’ll suggest Wyoming.
Yeah, I would argue there is indeed an argument you can occasionally make on hypocrisy. Not often though and *only* against libertarians because they are the world’s most irritating people to argue with, so all the regular rules about arguments (that they ignore) should be ignored by their interlocutors as well. I love telling them to go to Somalia and refuse to give that up.
There’s also a kind of build-up to the hypocrisy charges. Okay, it’s not a telling flaw that Individual Libertarian #1 is not actually interested in moving away from his family and friends or, you know, good food and good culture FOR FREEDOM. Eventually, though, it becomes noticeable that liking the products of civilization as it is known is A Thing.
“A tweeted hashtag isn’t a full argument, but his #mythofownership hashtag certainly seems like a (light-hearted) incorporation by reference of the argument of the Nagel and Murphy book by that name.”
“A tweeted hashtag isn’t a full argument, but his #mythofownership hashtag certainly seems like a (light-hearted) incorporation by reference of the argument of the Nagel and Murphy book by that name.”
so, pretty much exactly, then.
…
eh fuck it
I don’t see the equivalence. The Ygeslias kerfuffle is based on the false claim that his act–buying property–is a disavowal of previous declarations (that property ownership is a myth, or something). The Somalia argument is based on the accurate claim that libertarians avow a set of beliefs about the state that if they truly believed through all its implications would make Somalia an appealing model of their utopia.
You’re complaining about the form of the argument. That’s fine, but the Ygeslias situation isn’t on point, because but it misses the point that whether or not the form is bad is separate from the fact that the content of one is accurate and the content of the other is not.
Thank you, everyone who got this far, for bearing with me through a tortured justification of my continued use of the glib but emotionally satisfying retort about libertarians and Somalia. And my apologies for burning up 30 seconds of your life that you’ll never get back for more productive or enjoyable pursuits.
[Annoyed that I so often have to sign in--and don't get an alert when I haven't--for my comments to not be "anonymous."]
Yes Dana, I wondered if that was you, and I agree (as I said upthread to Substance).
You’d be far more annoyed if you saw the amount of spam that would clutter the threads if we didn’t make you sign in.
If it’s any consolation, someone *ahem the Donalde ahem* hijacked my IP address and was commenting as me a few months back, so I have to sign in on the front and back end of the site to comment or my words will just disappear into a kill file.
Federal prosecutions have happened for less. Couldn’t happen to a nicer….
Did you see his post on the NY Times article re:protection orders and guns? He is really a profoundly stupid man
I only read his blog when someone links to it and I either don’t realize it, or I’m in a mood to suffer. “Profoundly stupid” just about covers it, though, yeah.
Hijacked your IP address? How does that work?
He used some kind of software I’m sure you can download online to spoof IPs by misaddressing the packets, I assume.
Or otherwise he used a proxy server close enough to where SEK is posting from that it looks like it’s SEK…
I wasn’t complaining about signing in. I was complaining about not remaining signed in.
It’s a stupid thing to say, not for the reason Jacob gives, but because it’s a total misrepresentation of Somalia, which, obviously, isn’t libertarian at all.
The point is not that it’s “libertarian” but that very large chunks of it are ungoverned. And it works fine!
But libertarians aren’t actually in favor of getting rid of government?
Great! They can set up Libertopia as they see fit.
Tell that to the anarcho-capitalists and the mutualists.
No, libertarians are interested in setting feudal governments. And, that is what Somalia has.
Go look at the libertarian dream of making a giant, island-sized ship, which they would put in international waters and live the way nature intended.
This argument is weird, though, because it posits something impossible (the actual existence of a Libertarian), instead of just calling Randy Barnett a Republican who doesn’t want to be associated with Jesus freaks.
Uh, there isn’t anyplace that’s “libertarian.” Which is the point, because the libertarian paradise is pretty much Hobbes’ state of nature, which in the modern world has resemblances in only a few countries, including…uh, what’s that country on the horn of Africa?
I plan on using too and will just hyperlink to your comment the first time one of let them eat cake dunderheads wants to argue anything.
“Matt Yglesias endorses the use of taxation as a tool of economic justice, yet he bought a townhouse. Why hasn’t he just handed 100% of his assets and capital to the government instead?”
“Al Gore thinks anthropogenic climate change is an urgent collective action problem, yet he flies on airplanes. Why doesn’t he just travel on foot?”
“Randy Barnett wants to dismantle the New Deal and every other federal means of promoting the general welfare, yet his sugar daddies who got rich off of mid-twentieth century American prosperity will presumably see to it that he never misses a meal. Why doesn’t he just move to someplace with no governmental safety net or onerous regulations, instead of agitating to destroy the commonwealth for everyone else?”
The parallels are impressive, come to think of it.
I want to marry this comment
Ahh, so you’re saying Al Gore’s arguments on global warming as as ridiculous as the a-historical rantings of a Randian? Or are you elevating Randian rantings to the status of non-ridiculous? Because if not either of those two–both of which would be as ridiculous as the Randian rantings–I don’t see those supposedly impressive parallels.
Psst, Dana … Sarcasm.
“huh-huh, that libertarian hasn’t moved to Somalia and still drives on public roads, huh-huh.”
A libertarian who uses public roads is also advocating to let the system fall into disrepair because TAXES. This is hypocrisy.
A person who owns a house and still advocates for social justice is guilty of what exactly?
Pssssssst: we don’t tell them to move to Somalia because it makes logical sense, we’re just hoping they are gullible enought to actually go.
Guilty of using an argument that might upset the tender hearted liberals eating their cucumber sandwiches and listening to some soothing Kenny G while they hide from the rough-and-tumble of reality.
And OK, I won’t call it an argument, it’s a rhetorical device.
I’m listening to Michele McLaughlin when I do that, thank you very much.
They seem very confused on the basics. This is what Treacher quotes (and what the supremely unfunny Funniest Guy on the Right, “Iowahawk,” mistranslates to “Property is theft”):
Not sure what they’re objecting to, since even hardcore libertarians believe that a minimal state must exist to secure property rights.
Turns out the one thing the entire politblogosphere can cross the aisle and get behind is taking Matt Yglesias making a narrow, finicky, probably unnecessary point and pretending he is a wild-eyed (Marxist/capitalist lapdog/etc.)
The 60′s were sooo long ago, but didn’t Marx mention “Ownership of the Means of Production”?
A house, unless we want to get into a very feminist analysis, really isn’t a production site like a factory. So as long as Yglesias doesn’t buy out Slate or set up a server farm in the spare bedroom, it’s cool.
Yes, but people are focusing on the wrong thing! The goofy part isn’t that property is state dependent, but that redistribution presupposed that! Redistribution is just taking one property configuration and producing another (typically by fiat). This presumes property, but not the ground of property. (Whether it’s right depends on whether it’s legitimate to reconfigure in such and such a way on such and such grounds. That can depend a bit on one’s notion of the grounding of property.)
#hatingonyggefortherightreasons
If you read the comments, you realize that’s exactly what they’re saying. They believe property precedes government.
They don’t even believe what they believe. They’re nihilists, dude.
Or I should say – “Today, they believe etc. etc.”
Until such time as a working-class neighborhood needs to be razed so a billionaire can build a sports palace.
They’re nihilists, dude.
Sounds exhausting.
There’s a difference between the idea that property rights are created by government and the idea that property rights require a government in order to protect them. It’s a somewhat metaphysical and silly distinction, but the “nonsense on stilts” surrounding the idea of natural rights has been embraced by far more sophisticated thinkers than the current batch of libertarians, so I wouldn’t want to tar the idea entirely.
But the really hardcore ones don’t, actually.
Well, Medlock/Treacher is a nihilist and profoundly dishonest person, so he’s just whacking off on the side, while shit burns.
The others aren’t as smart or consistent as he is
In some ways, guys like Yglesias are more offensive to conservatives than people who are much more liberal than he.
Yglesias is a naked redistributionist. He’s completely up-front about his preferred public policies; he would like that the government have a progressive tax structure, and that it should disburse a lot of that tax money to the poor through direct cash transfers rather than a complex benefits structure. He would prefer that everyone be doing well enough to not require those transfers, but that’s secondary to his main priorities.
(This has been called pity-charity liberalism.)
That is actually more offensive to conservatives than what I think of as traditional liberalism, with its indirectly-provided benefits (food stamps, medicaid) and emphasis on things like the dignity of work. Yglesias wants to just take money from the job creators and give it out to the lazy lower classes without demanding anything from them in return!
Really? He does? I guess I don’t read him enough. This sounds, in our current discourse, kind of wild-eyed. Given that it is not a Very Serious Person argument practically ever, and I have found the 50 times or so I have read Matt Y. that this is one of his biggest aspirations, it surprises me that he espouses redistribution in its more general sense.
Must begin reading him more often.
Eh, it’s not all that far off from what Milton Friedman once proposed.
And when you get past hostility to any kind of redistribution, the reason so many people hate the idea of redistribution via cash is it doesn’t dictate the items and services on which people should spend their money. There’s a bit of moralism at play, but in recent decades there’s also a rentier motive at play, since so many business, non-profits and even industries depend on the current system.
The freedom sounds nice on its face – certainly I don’t want to begrudge struggling folks their beer and smokes as they see fit – but in practice I want a daycare space, and a simple increase in my benefit doesn’t get me one.
There are all kinds of ways to improve the lot of the less fortunate; just forking over cash doesn’t necessarily get everyone the benefit that government purchasing power can provide.
I don’t think it’s so much that he wants to hand out cash for the sake of it, but that he argues (fairly compellingly, to my ears), that the direct cash transfer actually gets you to
a lot faster and more efficiently than all of the indirect, bureaucratic hoop-jumping schemes we prefer.
The other thing about those indirect bureaucratic hoop-jumping schemes is that they’re a kind of government subsidy in themselves. Those are people’s jobs.
The people who work in the welfare state are a stake-holder in it, yes, but the current incarnation of the welfare state confers two other social benefits to those who don’t use it (and thus help perpetuate it):
First, bureaucratic hoop-jumping schemes dehumanize the poor because they are the bureaucratic hoop-jumpers. And dehumanizing the poor is a central psychological need of the non-poor under systems that are, essentially, meritocratic in name only; the poor need to be punished, because in order to be poor they had to have done something wrong.
Second, it helps reinforce the notion that, because the poor did something wrong, they fundamentally cannot be trusted. A conditional benefits systems allows for the public to throw up all manner of barriers to assistance for people who committed some truly egregious sin (like using some kinds of drugs, or being born with the wrong skin color) in order to further the punishment.
There’s going to be bureaucracy in disbursement no matter what. And even in the distribution of something simple like cash, there SHOULD be: you need a person to talk to if you think you need more money for housing. That’s not necessarily policing for abusers, it also allows for flexibility and recognition of circumstance.
A conditional benefits systems allows for the public to throw up all manner of barriers
It’s politics. An unconditional benefits system survives as long as there’s the will to have it. If you think conditional benefits are under threat…
Number 2: You have the right to food money
Providing of course you
Don’t mind a little
Humiliation, investigation
And if you cross your fingers
Rehabilitation
And that’s what leads to a lot of Yglesias’ advocacy for deregulation and revising zoning laws: if poorer people had more money, and there were fewer barriers to people starting businesses, we’d have more prosperity.
what I think of as traditional liberalism, with its indirectly-provided benefits (food stamps, medicaid)
I don’t think that’s traditional liberalism; I think that’s what traditional liberalism had to settle for in the US to get any kind of welfare state at all.
I’m curious as to how you think traditional liberalism ought to go about serving the poor, then. I’m not a professional historian as many of our hosts are, but my knowledge has always been along the lines of “liberals propose that the government tax people and then use that money to provide vital services such as education, health care, and if necessary food and housing to those who need it.”
And that’s a bit different that doing just straight-up wealth transfer.
Some things work best as vital services–education, or example, lest we fall into the “vouchers” clusterfuck. Housing has been a decidedly mixed bag–projects and Section 8s are usually blighted before they get their first tenants, so rent vouchers combined with limits on the amount of “market rate” housing would probably be an improvement. As far as food, cash instead of EBT would work just fine, if there weren’t such a hue and cry about Bucks And T-Bones and Booze And Cigarettes Paid For By The Taxpayer.
Remember, welfare was created to be punitive. I don’t know if it’s still true, but for decades, AFDC caseworkers could enter homes at random and cancel benefits of an adult man’s clothes were visible.
What’s interesting is that there used to be a term for that kind of thing, as opposed to “welfare”: “entitlement”. These days it seems that “entitlement” has taken on a pejorative connotation due to confusion with other (later, actually) meanings the term has taken on.
I’ve even heard it from leftish people: “don’t call it an entitlement, it’s something people have earned” or whatever. Well, “entitlement” means something you are entitled to, that’s all — “a sense of unearned entitlement” has decayed to “a sense of entitlement” and then to just “entitlement” and “entitled”.
Thanks,although I am afraid that ship already sailed. This is a pet peeve of mine.
A couple of things: Through the mid-20th century, the term “welfare” had relatively positive connotations. It was associated with “scientific” governance and the promotion of a common good (the “general welfare”). It only started to become a pejorative as ADC (later AFDC) became associated with African Americans. Having said that, you are quite right about the word “entitlement.” One of the key claims of the welfare rights movement was that welfare benefits ought to become treated as property rights (i.e., as an entitlement that could only be withdrawn through due process procedures). The conservatives since the 1960s have then busied themselves making the word entitlement into a pejorative, implying that the person who is “entitled” is nothing more than a spoiled teenager.
Second, DocAmazing is correct about AFDC raids, though the legal status is a bit complicated. King v. Smith outlawed the “man in the house” rules that some states had, in which the state could terminate women from welfare rolls if there was evidence that they were having sex with a man (the states’ logic was that if the woman was having sex with a man, then that man was constituted a “substitute father” who has financial responsibility for the woman’s children). With that ruling, the practice of the midnight raid (where caseworkers would conduct warrantless searches looking for men in the home) basically ended. However, there is in many respects even more surveillance now: DNA matching (to look for the father of a woman’s child), drug testing, computer matching, “rat calls,” and so on allow the state to monitor a TANF recipient’s life without having to do a midnight raid (warrantless home inspections are still conducted–and legal, so as to guarantee an applicant’s eligibility).
My partner who works for an agency that helps house elderly homeless people is always ranting about how the housing authority makes zero income people count their income they get from collecting cans so that the housing authority can take one third of it for its rent. It is just weird. He is torn about telling them not to discuss the cans if indeed they collect them, with the housing authority. Much like the TANF regs disincentivize marriage, these types of punitive regs just encourage people to lie.
As far as food, cash instead of EBT would work just fine, if there weren’t such a hue and cry about Bucks And T-Bones and Booze And Cigarettes Paid For By The Taxpayer.
I don’t see why (aside from politics) the government can’t just open its own soup kitchens and feed anyone who walks in off the street. You could absolutely guarantee that 0% of the money would go to steak, let alone booze and cigarettes, and you wouldn’t have to investigate anyone, except to make sure they weren’t trying to sneak the food out (although you’d kind of have to wonder why they’d bother, since there couldn’t be much market for something the government is handing out for free).
As long as not everyone went there, and most people would probably choose not to if they could afford not to, it probably wouldn’t even be that much more expensive than giving people money/debit cards to buy smaller servings or individual ingredients and cook them inefficiently themselves. (Although the state couldn’t easily recapture the amount of labor it currently costs the poor to cook their own food from scratch; the total amount of labor per person-meal in one big kitchen would be far less, but the recipients wouldn’t be doing it themselves, except the ones that happened to be hired to work there.) Or maybe even less, since the economies of scale could be truly massive. In the long run, poor people wouldn’t even need to own their own cooking equipment/appliances if they ate at the welfareteria all/most of the time.
If you wanted to restrict it to people below certain income levels you could, but since the truly affluent probably won’t want to either bother going there or rub shoulders with the people who *have* to go there, enforcing this might turn out to be more trouble than it’s worth. Anyway, the middle class and above are the ones paying for it through taxes, so why shouldn’t they be allowed to eat there too if they want?
Of course there wouldn’t necessarily be a huge menu (or maybe not even any menu: you eat what the cafeteria is serving that day or you go somewhere else), and probably everything would be health food low in fat and salt, but you know, if you want something else, pay for it yourself. The government is only going to keep you from outright starving, not give you a Big Mac.
It’s a nice theory, but the type of conservative SEK links in this post don’t make that kinds of distinction. MY is a liberal, therefore he hates capitalism, money, property etc. except when it directly benefits him. That’s as far as their thought process goes.
By whom?
I think it was Mike Konczal at Rortybomb who coined the term to describe a scenario where a nation has a strong safety net but lacks any substantial means through which labor can bargain for better compensation and working conditions.
Whether that safety net comes in the form of conditional benefits, like what we have now, or some kind of direct cash transfer to the poor doesn’t really matter. “Pity-charity liberalism” attempts to alleviate poverty without undermining the basic social forces that create poverty; what differentiates it is not how it alleviates poverty, but why.
That’s also my understanding of it.
I think I probably phrased things badly. Yglesias often prefers policies that are robustly liberal in that he wants wealth redistributed downwards, but often doesn’t seem to care about eliminating the need for said distribution, which is why I thought it was relevant to the discussion.
OK.
I only brought it up because I think a compelling argument can be made that cash transfers are superior to conditional benefits when it comes to alleviating the symptoms of poverty, and nothing about that argument relies on a paternalistic outlook.
Actually, its kind of the opposite. One of the psychological benefits for the non-poor of the system we use is that it creates a great deal of space for paternalism to flourish, because it calls for the poor to meet certain standards in order to qualify; the recent demand that assistance be tied to passing a drug test is just one variation on this theme.
But if assistance came in the form of a guaranteed income supplement, like a refundable tax credit given to people below the poverty line that “tops them up” at least to the poverty line, rather than the various conditional benefits currently offered by state and the Federal governments, that paternalistic space is confined. All you need to do to qualify for poverty assistance is (a) be poor and (b) submit a tax return.
I can still believe this and hold that labor should have expansive bargaining rights. Whether Yglesias actually does is another question.
Well, I mean, lord knows I phrase things badly all the time. The term in question is inflammatory enough I should probably be more careful in my deployment of it in general. I never mind being called out.
Where MY differs most strongly from the mainstream progressive movement is that he’s upfront about not wanting government service provision to serve a secondary (or primary) purpose as welfare program for the government service providers. The other differences are there but not that stark; he’s in favor of universal healthcare, preschool, food stamps, etc.
Who the hell wants that? That’s absurd.
(It’s notable that prominent government welfare programs with comparable private institutions typically have effectively zero overhead, e.g., Social Security, Medicare, etc.)
Apparently conservatives don’t believe in debt and also believe that Matt Yglesias lives by himself.
Yeah, I have no idea who his wife is, but given that he went to all those fancy schools it’s at least somewhat likely that he married into money. Hell, he might even have married a libertarian.
Why would libertarians get married? Aren’t they just submitting themselves to a form of interpersonal government overseen by the church to encroach on their liberty?
1.2 million dollars. Only a deadbeat unionized teacher could afford that.
Correct. Mitt or McCain couldn’t buy another house for that much.
“1.2 million dollars.”
is that what he paid for a townhouse? geez, he is an idiot! for that kind of money, he should have been able to get a pretty nice, single-family detached, on at least half an acre. some real estate agent saw him and his spouse coming.
Why would a three bedroom townhouse have three bathrooms? Is this an American thing? Normally the bathroom to bedroom ratio (from my experience) is 2 or even 3 to 1 in favour of bedrooms
I guess it’s a North American thing.
A family home has a master bedroom and 2-3 other bedrooms. The master bedroom has a master bathroom. At a minimum there’s one more bathroom. If one bedroom is on a different level of the house, it is likely to have a bathroom. If there’s a level of the house with no bedrooms, it’s likely to have a bathroom. That’s how my 3 bedroom house has 4 bathrooms. (But the four are only 2.75 worth of full bathrooms.)
That sounds pretty nice I must say..
It depends … somebody has to keep them clean :-)
It actually seems fairly common in the UK. Our smallish 2 bedroom flat has a main bathroom (which we use) and an “en suite” bathroom (which we don’t…it has a tiny shower in it). Well, we use it as a closet.
I’ve no idea why anyone thought this was a good idea, design wise. It’s like 6 feet more walk to the main bathroom. I guess is we had a kid it would be a point of possible contention, but really, I’d prefer the extra space.
Location?
So much to find lacking in Yglesias’ (very narrow) world view, leave it up to the wingers to completely miss the mark. Yglesias is pretty much Exhibit A for the caste system described 3 posts below this one.
What’s funny is the Twitchy article citing “The Rent is Too Damn High” as evidence of hypocrisy. Because Yglesias wrote book about… rent controls being good, or something?
I guess it just goes to show that “you can’t judge a book by reading its title and then ignoring rest of the cover, including the blurb on the back or literally any other piece of information that might be salient.”
What’s funny is the Twitchy article citing “The Rent is Too Damn High” as evidence of hypocrisy. Because Yglesias wrote book about… rent controls being good, or something?
Even funnier, it’s actually about how well-intentioned regulations prevent the market from creating affordable housing on its own. I haven’t read it and I don’t know if I’d agree with it, but that’s what it’s about. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s actually has read Yglesias since he moved to Slate, but all these morons know is that he’s in the Liberal Bucket.
Yeah, I know, I just don’t understand how that title can possibly be interpreted to mean that him owning a townhouse is hypocritical.
Conservative complains about gas prices on Facebook.
Conservative fills tank on the drive to work.
Conservative prays to be forgiven for such clear hypocrisy.
Conservative fills tank of Hummer on the drive to work, twice.
FTFY
Yeah – if he thinks the rent is too high, isn’t he more likely to buy a house? Rent money is dead money!
Not necessarily.
In my case, at my age, renting saves me about $300,000 over 25 years (if I live that long).
Money tied up in a down-payment, taxes, condo fees, upkeep. Ownership brings all these things.
Well, if he rented it out?
That’s the closest I get.
I haven’t read it either – it’s been a while since i read any of Yglesias’s writing regularly – but if you pay any attention at all to him, you know that his fondest dream is the abolition of most zoning rules, and giving home developers less artificial incentives.
I know.
It’s rather hilarious that these guys see him as some kind of commie.
That said, the zoning thing, along with his obsessive opposition to licensing and his support for various “education reform” measures can be quite irritating.
The main city that I know of that has almost no zoning is Houston, Texas. From what I’ve heard, it’s not a particularly nice place to live. I actually agree that there are several zoning and licensing laws which are stupid, but I don’t think dismantling the whole system would be smart.
“Martin Luther King went on record today, decrying rich, black Alabamans for attending the Symphony while protestors marched in the street to protest a lynching in Selma. This from a man who once wrote the book The Trumpet of Conscience! Well, I’d like to know: where does the “good doctor” REALLY STAND on symphonic instruments!?”
Yes, buying a house (after checking the title in the state-maintained registry, which title is part of a chain of title that goes back to appropriation under the authority of a colonial power) certainly contradicts the notion that property is anything but a natural institution existing exogenously to state authority. It’s just plain logic, people.
Yeah, while others have hit all the other bizarro logical leaps, I agree the best is the idea that MY believes that government is necessary for property, and some conservative gets information about MY’s property from the government records office proving that MY is a hypocrite for owning property?
Right, you can’t believe in property while saying it’s dependent on the state, just like you can’t believe in (legal codes, police, courts, rights that you can enforce in courts, etc.) while saying those things are dependent on the state.
Titles? Government records? A man’s home is his castle, dammit! And if he can’t hold that castle with his own two hands and a leather trench coat full of firearms, well, he’s free to sleep under the bridges.*
*all bridges are privately built and funded by toll revenues
Real estate seems to have an even stronger claim than other forms of property on the state being a necessary prerequisite. Land isn’t the product of anyone’s labor, and the state reserves certain rights (eminent domain) even while allowing private ownership. And the state’s role in land ownership is especially prominent in the District of Columbia for obvious reasons.
Yep, rich liberals are hypocrites, while poor liberals are just jealous losers (see “we are the 53%” etc.)
I know it’s hard not to assume your opponents are stupid and/or dishonest, but these guys aren’t even trying.
The ones in between are union thugs.
Matt Yglesias is an idiot..the average conservative even more so..this feud appears win win? whatamimissing?
Yglesias, whether you like him or not, is pretty far to the left of the median American, or for that matter, the median pundit, particularly on progressive taxation and social insurance. So yeah, we should stick up or him against idiocy like this.
I’m not saying his ideology makes him an idiot, but that his idocy does
For example this
http://yfiles.tumblr.com/post/39063806079/django-unchained
“You simply can’t tell the story of American film without touching on Birth of a Nation, Gone With the Wind, The Searchers, and other apologias for the antebellum south or briefs for white supremacy.”
Unless I’m completly misremembering it, the searchers is certainly not an ‘apologia for the antebellum south or briefs for white supremacy’
It depends on whether you buy Ford’s later arguments that the film was a “revisionist” Western that was criticizing the film’s thoroughgoing racism and fear of miscegenation. If you don’t extend him the benefit of the doubt, it’s easy to see the film as a “brief for white supremacy.” (Especially if you read the screenplay and consider the terms it uses to describe the Comanche.)
What’s your own view out of curiosity?
Depends on the day. Ford isn’t like Faulkner, whose struggle with race, its representation, and the legacy of slavery was so tortured that its thoughtfulness is unquestionable, even if its conclusions are sometimes dubious. Ford was working from a screenplay that included material like this:
That disinclines me to think the film was intended to be a sympathetic portrayal of the legacy of American policy in the West, but the screenplay isn’t the film. That said, there’s evident disgust on the faces of white characters when the subject of miscegenation comes up, and that’s Ford’s responsibility. Whether he was trying to accurately reflect the feelings of the historical period represented in the film, or whether that was a reflection of the feelings of the contemporary period in which he made the film, that’s a matter of debate. It can certainly be argued that the film’s influence wasn’t merely historical, and that the way in which it depicted Native Americans influenced a generation of directors in a manner that, to be charitable, isn’t what we’d call “historically accurate” or “thoughtful.”
In short, I’m conflicted. But I’m certainly not going to dismiss as specious an argument that claims it is racist any more than I will one that argues it represents historical racism.
“But I’m certainly not going to dismiss as specious an argument that claims it is racist”
No, that’s fair enough. I wasn’t aware of the films ambiguity on the issue. But then again MY isn’t exactly acknowledging it either, he’s explictely saying it is ‘a brief for white supremacy’..and dismissing arguments to the contrary ..and I don’t have a column in Slate..yet
Matt’s grandfather was a Cuban communist novelist and his father was a screenwriter, so his opinion my reflect family lore.
And thanks for the explanation..very interesting
The Searchers was towards the end of the era of Westerns. Is it really true that its vision of Native Americans was influential in making later directors depict Indians negatively? Hadn’t Indians been depicted more or less as The Searchers depicts them for decades?
It seemed to me that John Wayne’s character was engineered to draw you in so you identify with it, and then become repulsed by it. It is a much more effective technique than merely making racist boogeymen for the viewer to hate.
What is interesting is that you could easily argue that Ford was only advocating against all-consuming hatred. The film is entirely consistent with a philosophy of white superiority. It could be interpreted as a plea for whites to be more noble in their treatment of the “lesser races” and half-breeds. I can’t say for sure; it’s been a while since I watched it.
This is, I think, true. It definitely can be seen that way. It is a mixed film, but still excellent. I will say that if some day it becomes intolerable to esteem it, I guess I would be fine with that. I have to presume I would think it were racist as all get out if I were Native American. Most films are incredibly sexist. How do they relate to their context and is there anything of value in them? I find a lot about the Searchers to be very interesting.
“Especially if you read the screenplay and consider the terms it uses to describe the Comanche”
I guess that’s my answer?
Gosh. After it became impolitic to openly vomit your racism onto the screen, John Ford suddenly claimed that that wasn’t what he was doing at all.
Quelle surprise.
I’ve obviously completly missed the point with this film.. I have some hard thinking to do..and an apology to MY to compose
Read another of his columns. You’ll consider it a wash that he isn’t apologizing to you.
Yeah but I started abusing him on twitter over it..
While Ford’s film may be “a brief for white supremacy,” it is probably redeemed in Yggy’s eyes by the fact that Wood’s education after her abduction is not tainted by the influence of teacher unions.
Old Mose Harper never asked for no minimum wage
Ford’s theme of the romanticizing Confederates runs through many of his films, but I wouldn’t be inclined to think anything useful from Matt on this topic. Since the old Confederate is a Ford trope that intersects with other things he is doing in The Searchers I don’t see it as synergizing with some special racism of the film, and The Searchers is less problematic on the Ford side than his other films for what he does with old Confederates. That said, Ford’s Johnny Rebs generally are fighting with the US Cavalry- they are reintegrating into the American fabric (ugh see “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” or “Rio Grande” for examples)- though they are implements of America’s Manifest Destiny at the expense of Native Americans. But this is not singular to Ford’s westerns. I give thoughts in the newer SEK thread on this, but since the end of the film is “maybe it isn’t worth killing someone because they’ve been Othered even though I’m gonna spring this as a surprise as the reason John Wayne has been searching for 10 years)” and that Jeff Hunter’s character is clearly the conscience of the film and Ethan is clearly cast as in the wrong (showing the imperfection in the supposed romantic hero). Ford’s racism kind of blends in with his stereotyping. Because of our nations crimes against Native Americans, Ford’s bad comic approach and stereotypes are more terrible, but see what he does with his beloved Irish. They are all drunken brawlers. This is less pernicious, but I wouldn’t put Ford in the uniquely or especially racist category.
I know Erik mentioned in the other thread that he thinks The Searchers is as racist as Birth of a Nation, and given Erik’s attention to these things, I would at least listen to his argument. However, I would counter-intuitively say that Yglesias’ statement is “Loomis-like” hyperbole from Yglesias’ point of view, because here I have no confidence in anything he would say.
Yglesias is pretty far to the left of the median American on social insurance and foreign policy. I’ll give him that. Not sure about progressive taxation – he wrote a post not too long ago arguing in favor of taxing capital gains at a lower rate than regular income, which doesn’t seem particularly progressive to me. There’s a good number of other issues where he is not to the left of the median American at all.
You have some problem with punishing people for having earned their income through work, as opposed to letting the money do the work for them?
There was a huge thread on this back in a while where tt schooled me fairly hard on a common idea that capital gains suffer double taxation. I frankly STILL don’t understand it, but I’m comfortable sticking to my belief that capital gains tax (at even current income tax rates) doesn’t hugely depress investment in any interesting way (I say this as someone about to be dinged hard for a capitial gain).
I’m trying to decide whether the notion that Yglesias is a closet Marxist is any more screamingly absurd than the notion that Obama is one.
A lot of conservatives would consider them both openly Marxist.
Well, Marx was in favor of free compulsory education, and so is Obama. Thus, Obama is a Marxist.
Yeah, I hear that Marx ate food, and slept at night, too, so…
A lot of conservatives consider sidewalk construction openly Marxist.
Teddy Kennedy was wealthy and killed a woman, how on Earth could he also support Head Start and welfare and still oppose wars? These things are so confusing! Almost as confusing as hating drones and US assassinations AND hating Rand Paul.
It does make me sad to know that Yglesias can afford a $1.2M townhome.
+1
Well he did go to Harvard. So the half of his class that went into finance to fleece the rubes probably laugh at him for being so poor.
It might make you feel better (or worse, possibly) that he almost certainly couldn’t afford such an expensive home without a substantial amount of familial assistance.
His parents were pretty well-off.
His familiy isn’t in business or finance–they’re writers and academics (and his brother is a cop), although (particularly his dad and his uncle) they seem to have done pretty well. Google Paul Joskow, Rafael Ygesias, Jose Yglesias and Helen Yglesias, if you are interested.
His father’s a screenwriter too. I hear there’s sometimes good money in that.
His dad is a long-time bestselling author.
Fun fact: he wrote the novel & screenplay Fearless, which was turned into a Jeff Bridges film. He also wrote the Liam Neeson Les Miz screenplay, among a few others.
Fun fact 2: Doubleday published his first novel in 1972, when he was 17.
I’d say he’s fairly well off.
And good for him..spread the wealth but let’s not destroy it..or opposse luxury
And good for him..spread the wealth but let’s not destroy it..or opposse luxury
This!
Did you just spend the last hour deciding whether or not to agree with yourself?
Pretty much..I’m just happy I did in the end
A liberal is a man who won’t take his own side in an argument.
As a good leftist, Ronan isn’t down with that with that weak shit. He’ll totally take his own side in an argument.
I’m not even that far to the left Joe..I’m pretty conservative on a number of things..although I am a ‘European’..so i guess that complicates things
What is a “European” and how is it different from a European?
It’s non continental, so slightly less ‘socialist’ (which isn’t socialist) possibly more social conservative (depending) and annoyed at the EU, at the moment..I’ve basically made up most of this, so quote me with caveats
Fun fact 2: Doubleday published his first novel in 1972, when he was 17.
He dropped out of high school to write and publish a successful novel about a bright kid who drops out of high school to write and publish a successful novel. Write what you know. (I started reading Matt because I was someting of a fan of some of his grandfather’s books)
From this I can conclude that we are in fact living in the Matrix, because the screenwriter who wrote the Matrix was living in the same world as me.
And I’m sure he must have been living in the Matrix.
Or something…
TL;DR
You’re all 1s and 0s to me.
He’s the son of a successful novelist and screenwriter, and grandson of a successful novelist, so I’m not sure why you think he wouldn’t have money. The fact that he’s using his platform to advocate against his class interests is admirable, not lamentable, I think.
Writers and academics can make good money (particularly if you’re the kind of academic that ends up running the Sloan Foundation) but they aren’t in the Masters of the Universe class.
I’m not sure I’d say academics can make “good money,” but a few generations of them who have “side jobs” as successful novelists and screenwriters are likely to be doing pretty well.
I spoke somewhat ambiguously. The Yglesias side of his family are writers; the Joskow side are academics. And oddly, the academics are probably the ones with the big money–google NERA Economic Consulting, founded by MY’s Joskow grandparents.
“but they aren’t in the Masters of the Universe class.”
J.K. Rowling is.
Stephen King too.
Neither of whom are academics, nor ever have been (I think), not even as their day jobs.
Does a High School teaching count as an “academic”? That’s what King did before he sold “Carrie”.
I’m pretty sure he belongs to the Jesuit order of Liberals, which takes a vow of poverty. This purchase is very disappointing.
+1
He went to the Dalton School here in NYC.
You don’t do that on scholarship, unless you’re dirt poor. So his parents paid, which means they paid an awful lot.
Oh it was mostly a low-blow at yglesias. More that he gets paid that much to write what he writes, which of course falls apart when you remember that he’s got a lot of familial wealth.
He’s good on some issues and then, as soon as I’m giving him another chance, writes something inexcusably awful.
(A) I don’t know the details, but it’s often mentioned that his family is well-off and (b) he has a girlfriend (maybe finacée now?), so he’s likely not paying for it entirely from his blogging salary at Slate.
AFAIK, Wife.
Well, if he’s got a girlfriend, a finacée, and a wife, and they all chip in…
He can afford a loan on a $1.2M condo in a townhouse. $1.2M won’t get you a whole townhouse these days.
Sure it will.
I thought sympathy was for the Devil?
Pleased to meet you…
Since conservatives think liberals are communists, any instance of a liberal not acting like a communist is hypocrisy. This has the added advantage of making conservatives completely immune to the great quantity of plain evidence that liberals are not communists.
Evidence denies faith, you moocher.
I was surfing for NCAA games on the radio on the way home from work and ran into a wingnut program. In the 5 minutes I listened to it, the guy called liberals some variant of commie probably a dozen times – once even referring to the states that set up health insurance exchanges as just being hippies playing ultimate frisbee.
Twenty-six states have set up health insurance exchanges. More than half the states, probably something like 2/3rds of the country. But yea, all ultimate frisbee.
And this is just a random 5 minutes. These guys are out there talking this up 24 hours a day.
Even taking to account that Republicans have been fighting cartoon liberal stereotypes instead of the real ones since the 1960′s, this is crazy.
Health exchanges: structured marketplaces where individuals can compare different offerings from different insurers and make their choice without being constrained by their employers’ group policies. This seems like the least “communist” aspect of the American health insurance system.
Yes, that is truly disturbing. A system set up basically as the most capitalist form of government healthcare you can get it still communism to a lot of conservatives now.
We really might as well go to single-payer, because they’ll think it’s socialism no mater what.
yglesias has both too much faith in mythical free market capitalism and a genuine desire to take money from rich people and give it to poor people. he spends too much time trolling the left on the former and not enough time on the latter.
Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not something worth criticizing about conservative’s borderline sociopathic inability to sympathize with anyone outside themselves.
No, it is just more painful that MY is their liberal stick figure, you know like when they get on about those liberal rags The New York Times and The Washington Post. One day they will welcome him into their bosom, maybe just once with “even the liberal MY…”
He isn’t, as far as I can tell, “trolling” the Left. His various heterodox beliefs in standardized testing, free trade, labor skepticism, etc. are perfectly sincere as far as I can tell.
It is entirely possible to believe what you say and still be trolling.
I think JenBob and Dagchester, for example, really do believe most of what they say, they just also enjoy irritating their people.
sorry
“irritating people”
Yeah, but the accusation of trolling loses a lot of its gravity once you concede they’re perfectly sincere in their beliefs.
When you go from:
to
something essential has been lost. Before, you were accusing them of arguing in bad faith; now, you’re just imputing negative personality traits on them. Your criticism goes from substantive to superficial, from a claim that your opponent is arguing in bad faith to, in essence, just calling them an annoying git.
One reason to be concerned about that is because you’re diluting the meaning of the word “troll,” which I think is a fairly distinct and unique meaning that should be preserved. Another is that you’re trumping up your charges by using incendiary language, and trying to conceal the fact that you either don’t have or won’t bother to make a substantive criticism.
Sorry, this is me.
On the one hand, I agree with this. I don’t think labeling people who argue beliefs different than yours as trolls is wise. I think Yglesias is wrong on several issues (education reform being the most notable), but he doesn’t strike me as a troll.
On the other hand there are some beliefs that are so ludicrous or offensive that they are not worth refuting. “Gays are perverts who will burn in hell”, “Christine Lagarde is the puppet of a malign conspiracy masterminded by Obama”, and “Women shouldn’t be able to vote” are some recent examples from Dagchester. Even if sincerely held, these beliefs are completely and utterly insane and anyone arguing them clearly does not reside in the same universe that I do. Given that, I am not sure what use it would be to engage them.
Furthermore, even if sincere, people often act in ways which are quite irritating and make people reluctant to engage with their arguments. Yglesias is sometimes guilty of this. He has an unfortunate tendency to make certain arguments, e.g in favor of school vouchers, and when the problems with those arguments are pointed out, repeat the same argument without even acknowledging the criticism. He also has a tendency to interpret any opposing argument in the most uncharitable manner possible. To an extent, this is something most of us have done. I, myself have acted in this way. But that doesn’t make it any less annoying.
Finally, it is often difficult to engage with people’s arguments when it seems like they just ignore whatever you say. This is the main reason I finally gave up arguing with Data, because it became clear that nothing I said would get him to even think about his views, let alone rethink them. Given this, it is often easier to just label people as trolls and ignore them.
Sorry I ran on for so long.
Also, the reason I don’t have a nym is I just can’t think of one.
Yglesias is not a troll by any stretch (moi would sais). He’s a coddled, unself-aware, self-absorbed pundit charlatan with no experience of any profession besides generating opinions. I would say he doesn’t even do a good job of conveying information. FLAMES on the SIDE of my FACE!!!!
Hey, stop stealing my excuses!
the accusation of trolling loses a lot of its gravity once you concede they’re perfectly sincere in their beliefs
Problem is, they are perfectly sincere in their belief that rightwingnut assholery is the way to be . . .
And that is why they are horrible, horrible assholes, rather than trolls.
I would say that they are derailing which is one thing that trolls do, but can be separated from trolling per se.
As long as he doesn’t come over all Megan Goddamned McCardigan and start sharing his interesting conversations with the colorful people around Logan, conversations which somehow always support his world view, I will hold off on starting Operation Evict the Bloody Hipsters.
It’s only a matter of time.
Caught this on the Wiki entry for Matt Y:
It’s not a secret that Yglesias was a College Republican before embracing the slightly-left-of-center. Dude went to a ridiculous womb-for-the-wealthy instead of high school; he may not have known you could be a liberal.
It’s more complicated than that, Warren–his grandfather had a column for the Daily Worker.
Before I ever read MY, I’d read and liked a book by his grandfather called Tirstan and the Hispanics, which was written when MY was a toddler, but absolutely had MY’s character nailed:
And?
Plenty of liberals voted for Romney for Governor. That’s how he WON.
Calls into question their judgment, nicht wahr?
As I recall, Romney was still pretending to be a moderate then. The Democratic candidate that year was uninspiring and ran a horrible campaign. There were rumors that her husband was involved with the Enron scandal, which Romney exploited. Finally, the Green candidate did well enough to draw away some Democratic votes.
So it does call their judgement into question, and I wouldn’t have voted for Romney, but I can still understand why some people did.
As a Californian, I really hated the Governator, but I’m not exactly going to blame people for not voting for Grey Davis or Cruz Bustamante.
Although it’s true that Yglesias isn’t really that liberal.
Until they boarded up the Overton window on MY’s left and installed a new one to his right.
The Governator did save us from Governor Darrell Issa at least.
or calling them liberals
MY more or less goes for Romney over Obama on all that non-social non-foreign policy stuff. For the presidential election.
For magical and entirely unsupported reasons. This is sheer insanity. This is looking into Putin’s heart level pundichoadery. Romney as a closet Keynesian. I also cannot disprove that space rays are currently verbing objects. Magic 8 ball says “IT IS POSSIBLE!”
Yeah, that ludicrous-speed level special pleading there.
WTF?
Really?
I guess at least he’s a Keynesian economist and supports stimulus.
On the downside he somehow convinced himself Romney cared at all about the country. Though increased spending is definitely more likely with a President Romney. Republicans would suddenly forget all about deficit reduction again, and we might even have another war to spend on!
I’m confused. I thought we were all a bunch of leeching welfare queens?
When did we all become rich, hypocritical limousine liberals?
SOROS!!
Up on Housing Project Hill
it’s either fortune or fame
You must pick one or the other,
though neither of them are to be what they claim
The underlying belief/tactic that is being lampooned is so nonsensical that I cannot even understand the points being made against it.
Surely there must be some long German word for this situation.
Arschlochkopfzyndrom.
The link says yglesias’ new townhouse cost 1.2 million. Where is he getting the 6 or 7 thousand a month required to pay that mortgage? Could he actually make that much money writing for slate?
None of my business. What makes it yours?
I’m confused why there’s an article about it at all.
Apparently not: he tweeted his salary recently – said he makes less than the highest-paid Chicago Public Schools teacher and (obvs) more than the lowest-paid. 115K is the salary at the top of the CPS schedule. Wife went to MIT, but employed in non-profit (???). Slate + spouse + book proceeds cover it maybe? Seems you’d need 250K NET to sustain that mortgage. Fundies invest funds in real estate?
I recall an earlier phase of this movement where opponents would mock the fact that he believed in global warming yet still traveled in airplanes. Pull out the tear gas folks because we have a conservative LAUGH RIOT.
It sort of infuriates me that people have no conception of what hypocrisy actually is.
Even more infuriated since I read the Twitchy nonsense… rich people caring about poor people is “ironic”? How does that scan? That doesn’t even begin to approach coherence. Malkin must pay her flying monkeys by the amount of drool they get on the keyboard.
It’s ironic, like
Rain on your wedding day,
Free Ride when you’ve already paid,
or
10,000 spoons when all you need is a fork?
Conservatives have often used this argument: that being liberal + upper middle class/rich=hypocrite. They’ve never explained how the math works, though. I’m still confused. It’s kind of a bugaboo for me.
Apparently the only honest man is Ebeneezer Scrooge.
John Yoo
I’m surprised you’re expecting sense outa these morons
Conservative view of someone wealthy who advocates for the social contract:
“what a hypocrite”
Conservative view of someone NOT wealthy who advocates for the social contract:
“look at that loser jealous of successful people”
Convenient, aint it
Work on your reading skills- the articles that are posted on rightwing blogs are not going after Yglesias “because he bought a house”, but rather because of a recent tweet of his in which he correctly pointed out that-
This is pretty basic Locke and natural rights philosophy, the kind of stuff that conservatives have been recently talking about and that liberals used to talk about before they became statists.
So the point is that on one hand he tweets about how property rights existed prior to the state and that the state is neither the lawful creator or destroyer of said property, and on the other hand he preaches that the state should lawfully take property from others or somehow create property.
That’s kind of a major point…. how did you miss that?
This makes no sense..every sentence contradicts the last..conservative teacher is a stupid name
Maybe it’s parody. How stupid would you have to be to be a conservative teacher? THIS stupid!
Good point..although i clicked on the name and it doesn’t seem to be (unless they’re playing a deep game)
You have the tweet exactly backward, dude. Read it again.
Opps, you are right, my mistake, I did read the tweet exactly backwards. Withdraw my comments about Yglesias being a hypocrite regarding property rights- I guess he really does believe that all property rights come from the state and that prior to the existence of the state people had no rights to life, liberty, and property. Sorry about that- misread his quote. He’s just wrong and rejecting everything our nation is built on, not a hypocrite regarding property rights. Opps.
prior to the existence of the state people had no rights to life, liberty, and property
Maybe they did, but who was ensuring and protecting them?
Some warlord? The biggest, meanest motherfucker in the valley?
Yeah. That’s the way we should go.
You’re good at being internally inconsistent. I’m impressed.
Why would I nation be built around ensuring these things… if we didn’t need a nation to insure these rights?
Lololol.
I’m going to throw this comment in your fact every time you write something I don’t like.
Derp derp, “falsely implied” means he thinks it true, right, derp derp?
Because Locke’s argument, in itself, is nothing more than a self-justifying fairy-tale? It may be internally consistent as a theory, but in relation to actual documented history, it’s just nonsense. The stilts came later.
Someone does not understand the meaning of the word “falsely”, despite it being quite apropos for describing that someone’s arguments.
So Yglesias says that the only reason you have stuff is because good ole USA has got your back. Then he bought stuff.
Contradiction is where?
No they didn’t.
Possessions exist in the absence of a state. Property is much more than possession.
Matt does a good enough job contradicting liberal policies as it is. Also at failing upwards. Let’s say 50% of the time he says interesting things (SWEET CHARITY), things that most likely have been said better in more interesting ways by other people. This leaves the other 50% of things he says in the pile of completely wrong, completely meaningless, or completely enraging. I know, I know, he is tearing down the establishment from the inside, on McArdle dinner party at a time. I don’t know why I find Ezra Klein more disappointing. By all accounts the smarmy puppydog handwringing careerism should be more annoying than the obtuse simpleton glibertarian technocratic robot shtick that Yglesias marinates in. Lo, the crushing regulatory burden in the hair-styling industry, lo, the yoga instructor gap, lo, the unfairness of the bashing of the Olive Garden.
By all accounts the smarmy puppydog handwringing careerism should be more annoying than the obtuse simpleton glibertarian technocratic robot shtick that Yglesias marinates in.
Don’t you mean it should be less annoying?
I can’t tell anymore. Depends on the day.
I dunno, Klein seems to be trying, and hits the mark well enough often enough, while Yglesias gave up on that a while ago.
But have I told you how much I hate gossip?
I guess trying is not what I think Wonkblog is doing. I know this is a very trolly stance, but I think Bob Somerby has been incredibly spot on about Ezra (I know the Somerby tone is difficult for many), and he reads Ezra a lot because he mainly focuses on the Times and Post. Ezra works within a Village narrative and similarly (to MY) has no real world experience outside of fabricating a career out of nothing.
Hm. Fair enough, I suppose, about Klein’s real world experience. I was thinking, though, of his longer columns in Bloomberg* (often reprinted at Ten Miles Square at the Washington Monthly). I haven’t read the Somerby.
* N.B. His most recent one, an explanation of how he got the Iraq war wrong, is completely lame. All I could do was shake my head and remember that he’s actually pretty young.
I guess I’d still stand by the thought that Klein hasn’t become, you know, craven.
He’s only writing that column because it is what many Pundits Must Do now. He is still pretty young but what is he going to learn now that he is in the system? He’s not going to go to school and he’s not going to get a job outside of the machine. When does he mature? He’s in the machine and he’s staking out the arbiter of fairness territory. He’s but a few steps away from “fact checker” territory or for those who follow climate science, Andrew Revkin or worse Keith Kloor. I frankly worry that the only progressiveness left in Ezra is the exact amount required of the current MSNBC brand- a brand with no institutional memory or commitment to self-awareness. It makes me quite depressed.
Hmmm. I’m still inclined to be more charitable to Klein. Sometimes he mis-steps and badly, but he does seem to have a lot of right impulses. (Two clear missteps: Thinking Paul Ryan was serious, which he retracted. Retracting his bash of Lieberman as a heartless killer of the sick for his games with PPACA…alas, afaik, he didn’t retract his retraction.)
He’s successful in a highly compromising environment, so he’s going to be compromised in a variety of ways. But given where he is, he seems to be doing fairly well, thus far, for progressivism.
Okay, I’ve checked a couple of Somerby pieces, and this seems quite right about the three Ezras (hard-copy Ezra, Wonkblog Ezra, and Cable News Ezra).
Fucking Olive Grove can’t even cook spaghetti.
FWIW as owner of a DC townhouse, the market is incredibly a sellers market right now. Happens every four years as the last group of apple knockers decides they would like to stay and cash in and the new group arrives. Eli is a happy bunny.
Seriously, how much money could Yglesias possibly make as a writer for Slate? He is a well known name and he’s jumped around to a few different places already. Is it possible that they pay him 200 or 300K? I don’t see how else he could afford this house without substantial help from his wife or parents.
Well, presumably he and his wife have bought the place together.
[...] ‘gotcha’ politics” (which thoughtful progressives never do, y’know) and defends the role of the intelligentsia in the struggles of the proletariat: ”Yglesias can only be a hypocrite for purchasing an expensive home in a buyer’s market if [...]
My complaint with Yglesias has been his repeated dismissal of the plight of the regular person when it comes to population density. He takes the view that the more the merrier and the more crowded the better. That means higher rents (or housing prices), miserable commutes, and an abandonment of some pleasures of life (owning and driving a car).
This purchase of a pricey condo makes me wonder how much he is in touch with the real world.
He takes the view that the more the merrier and the more crowded the better. That means higher rents (or housing prices), miserable commutes, and an abandonment of some pleasures of life (owning and driving a car).
No, it doesn’t. Yglesias is in favor of building more dense housing so that the increased supply will drive *down* prices/rents. That’s why he wrote an ebook titled “The Rent Is Too Damn High”. (Which I haven’t actually read, but he’s made the point so many times on his blog already, it’s pretty obvious where he stands on this).
The one thing that unmistakably would be hypocritical from Yglesias-the-property-owner would be complaining about the building next door being too tall, or opposing more dense development in his neighborhood. If someone catches him doing that, feel free to point it out, I’ll even join in the mockery.
Although it is funny to see the juxtaposition of “miserable commutes” as a bad consequence and driving a car as one of the pleasures of life. When you live miles and miles from work (and low density will make sure you do), driving a car, especially through traffic, is more chore than pleasure. Density = shorter commutes = not having to drive a car unless you actually WANT to. Which some people do, but even they would prefer less traffic (because other people are driving fewer vehicle-miles per unit time), wouldn’t they?
Obviously, if you don’t like to drive the car, owning it is an even worse chore and expense. Some people would love to be freed up from that if not for the fact that if you happen to live in a low-density sprawl hell with no public transportation, you can’t get anywhere any other way. And one of Matt’s most frequent points (which I happen to agree with, FWIW) is that you don’t, in fact, *happen* to live in a place like that, public policy deliberately creates them and pushes you into them whether you like it or not.