Robert Baratheon

I grew up in Rhode Island - "the bluest state" - so I have a certain perspective of progressivism and its practical effects that others may not. Left-wing central planning and social programs, combined with a symbiotic alliance between organized labor, social interest groups, and corrupt Democrat politicians, have literally wrecked the economy and culture of that state. Every year, businesses and productive individuals flee by the thousands in search of jobs and a better standard of living (Rhode Island is the only state actually losing population) while illegal immigrants flood in to fill the void, lured by loosely administered and overly generous welfare benefits. The unemployment rate has been among the highest in the U.S. for 5 years running. You might have heard about the recent 38 Studios fiasco in which the politically appointed "experts" of state's central planning board invested $100 million of taxpayer money into Curt Schilling's video game company, which swiftly went bankrupt, losing the entire investment and dumping the company workforce onto RI unemployment. The Providence corporate tax rate is the highest in the U.S. The state has been ranked dead last for business two years running. A steady cycle of Democratic politicians is ferried off to Federal prison on corruption charges only to return to pick up where they left off several years later. So when those like Kacy write off progressivism as merely having a marginal impact on our wallets - or assert that a ten commandments placard in a courthouse is a bigger threat to our collective freedom and opportunity - it distinctly feels as if my leg is being urinated on.

Carnegie is for business. This is entertainment. If you're ever interested in explaining how Rand Paul and Paul Ryan are supposedly a bigger threat to our freedom than say, Barbara Boxer and Sheila Jackson Lee, you know where to find us.

Even setting all economic issues aside (it pains me to even write those words), Rand Paul is indisputably a libertarian-leaning politician who scores far better than your average politician on issues of individual liberty. Simply because he pays Christianity some lipservice at fundraising events and doesn't unequivocally support legalization of drugs is a rather silly basis to blast him through social media while far worse offenders are ignored.

The Libertarian Party, like all U.S. third parties, has no practical chance of achieving mainstream success. But what we are seeing now is a shift within the Republican Party, which is of mainstream consequence, away from Bush's expansionist "neoconservativism" and toward small-government principles that libertarians can actually get behind. Beck, Rand Paul, and the Tea Party are the major driving force behind this ideological shift (a profoundly positive development), but Kacy feels it necessary to relentlessly attack them instead of the progressive politicians and pundits who unabashedly spend their every waking moment trying to expand the power of the state. Isn't it more logical that the targets of our ire be prioritized based on harm and the real threat they pose to our liberties?

Kacy, I just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. You appear to be saying that you "couldn't vote for" the most vocally libertarian, pro-small government Senator in U.S. history because he advocates reducing current drug laws instead of full legalization. Just as a point of reference for this discussion, Rand Paul won his race for the U.S. Senate by defeating Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, a moderate Democrat who favors expansion of Federal involvement in the War on Drugs, Obamacare, and the Patriot Act, and opposes decriminalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Kacy, I agree with you (and possibly Stewart) that the larger media trend is toward sensationalism. They want viewers of any political persuasion. However, every poll and study I've ever seen on the subject has identified most journalists as liberal Democrats. Many in the media have admitted this openly, including Ira Glass of NPR (although he still claims neutral NPR reporting, which as a listener, I find absolutely laughable). So on its face, it's not ridiculous to suggest they might generally favor, say, President Obama over Mitt Romney/John McCain. But I'm not going to claim that there is some overarching conspiracy in the media to wipe out or under-report stories that support a conservative agenda. Stewart is a much more clear-cut case. Besides being a self-described "socialist," he openly supports President Obama and universal health care on the air every chance he gets. He incessantly blasts conservative politicians and social movements, and his criticisms of liberal Democrats, such as the President, are for making non-ideological missteps or not doing enough to advance their shared agenda. His "Rally to Restore Sanity" was essentially a giant jab at the Tea Party movement and *the crazies* who resist gun control, etc. Stewart was implicitly saying positions like universal healthcare are "moderate" positions, while any system that "lets people die in the streets" (not a direct quote, but you will frequently hear similar rhetoric on Stewart's program) is "extremism" - a textbook case of Alinsky-style radicalization of the opposition. He accuses other journalists (almost exclusively conservative/libertarian) of failing to fairly inform the public while he deflects all criticism of himself on the basis that he is a "comedian" and not a reporter(even though his show is functionally indistinguishable from many of the Fox News entertainment-style programs). It's an unfair double standard of conduct.

Kacy, Let me ask you a question to flesh this out a bit. I recently resold a Nintendo DS and game bundle on Craigslist for a small profit. I identified the game in the ad as "Metroid Hunters: First Hunt." Anyone who looks up the game online will immediately learn that this is a demo version of the Metroid Hunters game with only a couple of playable features. I didn't explicitly mention this to the buyer, and although I had no direct knowledge either way, it was somewhat likely the buyer wasn't aware of this information. Was it my legal or moral responsibility to assume his ignorance and explain to him exactly what he was buying? Was I guilty of "fraud" for taking advantage of this potential information asymmetry between us? I think you know my answers to the above questions already, but I would be interested in hearing yours within the context of the broader discussion.

I don't deny Birdman seems like an intelligent chap. However, some of the craziest lunatics I encountered in my chess tournament days were Mensa members. The relationship between intelligence and utility may not in fact be linear, but instead more of a bell-shaped curve with the maximum lying somewhere around 130. I'm not going to blanket-dismiss his writings on an emotional basis as others have done. His ideas deserve to be discussed at face value (I hold some unpopular ones myself). I admit it's just a hunch, but I do think the "Jewish question" he posits was a starting point in his thinking instead of a conclusion he reached through objective analysis. Too much of his reasoning smacks of confirmation bias and cherry-picking, and I wasn't very impressed with his tautological central argument that basically boils down to "All Jews are bad, except for those who aren't."

That's good. I've heard of people being stationed in some pretty strange places where it wasn't immediately obvious why we needed a military presence. I think it's an open question of whether simply being there is a contributing factor to having so many enemies in the first place. One concern over large standing armies, especially stationed abroad, is that they tend to get used (Iraq, etc.).

One question that comes to mind is why we need military personnel deployed to Italy, Greece, and Israel.

You're literally correct that laws are not regulations, but I think you might be a bit confused over the actual distinction between the two. Functionally, they have the same effect, which is to specify what a covered entity must and must not do. Laws and regulations both carry force of law behind them. The key difference is whether the legal requirement is enacted by Congress directly (law) or by an administrative agency empowered by Congress to act on its behalf (regulation). From the perspective of the individual, it doesn't make a practical difference whether you are required by statute or regulation to install 42" guardrails on stairwells - you're still going to Home Depot at the end of the day. This is why "regulation," in the colloquial sense of the word, can refer to either type of action.

My statement was made partially in jest, but your use of the word "actually" implied that Stewart was making a principled criticism of the Obama administration. I watched the segment, and the opposite is true. Stewart's criticism of the scandal is solely on the basis of giving *those crazies* in the Tea Party movement something to make hay over, not for the misconduct itself. I thought it was worth mentioning since there are some here who believe the Daily show is equal opportunity in its mockery.

MSK, don't fall into the Daily Show progressive mind-trap. Stewart criticized the administration, but ONLY because the scandal gave ammo to conservative groups.

Kacy, you've repeatedly stated that you don't want to regulate psychics, but you do understand that requiring a disclaimer would be regulation, correct?

I know it's not directly on topic, but if we're going to discuss the above story in terms of emotional leanings, I have a profoundly difficult time feeling sorry for the Greatest/Boomer generations who enjoyed a relatively higher standard of living than my generation can ever hope to have. The public and military pensions targeted by these firms (and to a lesser extent Social Security/Medicare) were functionally indistinguishable from Ponzi schemes operating at the expense of future taxpayers and retirees. Those redistributionist systems really were rank exploitation by borrowing an unsustainable standard of living through debt and compounding obligations. Public and military pensions have been drastically reformed since they were first implemented just to keep them solvent and paying out the disproportionally high benefits to those who got in early. One conservative commenter on a RI blog refers to this as the "union life cycle," which had much the same effect on private institutions, such as the airlines and steel and automotive industries. To take one example of the disparity between generations, Federal employees who entered the work force before 1987 were guaranteed a lifetime fixed pension based on highest salary - now Federal employees get the equivalent of a 401k. Note: I'm not complaining about the current system - I'm all about sustainability and solvency - just pointing out that I have little sympathy for those who got in early, were given a full ride on the gravy train, and yet somehow managed to fall off through their own poor planning and financial management. If I see anything out of Social Security/Medicare at all when I retire (I'm not counting on it), it will be nothing compared to what my grandparents' generation received for the pittance they paid into it, most of which ended up in Florida restaurants and casinos. Technology cuts both ways. It's no accident IT geeks are disproportionately libertarian since the internet is the greatest consumer empowering mechanism in history and has put many of those who previously relied on information asymmetry out of business. I don't see it as a problem that intelligence and other traits aren't divided evenly across the human species. I see that simply as reality, and the question then becomes what to do about it from a policy perspective. If the evidence were in favor of central planning as a fair and efficient method of resource allocation, then I'd be more amenable to it. But the evidence is overwhelmining on the side of markets precisely because they so efficiently allocate human capital and allow everyone some buy in. The poor today would be recognized as enjoying a remarkably high standard of living compared to the middle class of a century ago (even the illegals in my area have smart phones, etc.) so it's not like they get entirely left behind. I agree that ethnocentricism (what I call racial clansmanship) is a huge cultural problem - especially if you're the one being excluded from it - but my approach is the opposite of yours and Birdman's. I want all ethnocentricism equally shamed and shunned as violative of modern notions of fairness and opportunity. I don't see two wrongs as making a right, even if the discrimination is retaliatory. Nor do I see white pride, or whatever you want to call it, as a viable resurgent social movement. By contrast, the individual-empowerment approach I'm describing has gotten a lot of traction recently. For example, there has been a pretty significant backlash against affirmative action over the last decade, with many states going to far as to ban the practice by popular referendum, despite the wishes of their political elites. As I said earlier, I don't dispute that many Jews are liberals/progressives, but the argument that Jewishness is the root cause of societal problems confuses the correlation between Jewishness and intellectualism with some kind of inherent causal link between Jewishness and progressivism. Most intellectuals/academics/politicians are liberal/progressive, period. Listing specific Jews who have harmed our culture through progressive/statist influence just strikes me as an exercise in cherry-picking and confirmation bias - we could just as easily do the same with ASPs. To take one example, there are two leading political bloggers in my perpetually depressed home state of Rhode Island (a case study in the folly of progressivism, if there ever was one). The leading liberal/progressive blogger is Jewish, but so is the leading conservative/libertarian blogger who has been dutifully documenting the decline and taking the ruling Democratic political class to task for the past decade. Jewish economists like Rothbard and von Mises founded the Austrian (free market) school of economics that is the sole major opponent of Keynesianism today. Milton Friedman, another Jewish economist, was perhaps the most influentional advocate of markets and small-government in the 20th century. David Ricardo, yet another Jewish economist, was laying the foundation of laissez faire capitalism back in the 1700's before neoclassical economics were even on the radar. Two contemporary thinkers who have greatly influenced me are Russell Roberts, host of libertarian EconTalk, and Jonah Goldberg, conservative author of Liberal Fascism, which examines the historical foundation of modern progressivism. Both are Jewish. I could continue... I'm sure Birdman could provide some convulted reasoning of how all these counterexamples are simply anomalies or exceptions, but the evidence is there for anyone who wants to find it. The problem is with human nature and intellectualism/academia generally, not with Jews specifically. Exiling or murdering such people would only eliminate many of the best thinkers and advocates the small-government movement has ever known, as well as the many scientific achievements they would have developed.

I was much less impressed with those pieces than Birdman's piece on the importance of a high-trust culture, which at least made a number of salient broader points. Much of these pieces seems to be a thinly veiled exercise in irrational thinking, or more specifically, confirmation bias with regard to his arbitrary starting assumption that Jews are the fundamental problem in society. Jews participated in all of the pro-liberty, pro-civilization advancements he cites as evidence of ASP benevolence, but since most of the prominent figures were ASPs (unsurprising, since ASPs were 95%+ of the population and Jews around 1%), Jews were obviously just riding on ASP coattails in his view. An obvious counterpoint is that ASPs fought on both sides of each of the conflicts he cites (slavery/abolitionism, American Revolution, etc.), but he inexplicably credits ASPs on the right side while ignoring those in opposition. The holocaust is inconvenient to his position, so he just pretends it never happened despite the evidence. He acknowledges that Jews are disproportionately peaceful, honest, productive members of society, but then asks us to ignore all that because it's not really important (then what is?). One who honestly looks can find countless counterexamples of pro-liberty, conservative Jewish leaders in modern America, but all of those people are just outliers, he claims, so again, discount them. The only point I found remotely persuasive was his point that most Jews are liberal, but this is true of the intellectual/academic/political class across the board, including ASPs, so it's much more likely correlation than causation. I wasn't persuaded by his numerous disclaimers that he has no deep-seeded bias against Jews (methinks he doth protest too much), and he seems extraordinarily light on the evidence side. I agree with him that there is a deep cultural problem developing in this country, but his simplistic solution of removing all Jews is going to leave him very disappointed when he realizes the fundamental problem has little to do with them. The Nazis and Soviets learned the hard way that bad things happen when you kill or exile a huge percentage of your best scientists and thinkers.

Thank you, Kacy. My visits to Miami are less frequent now, but they are also more flexible. Keep us apprised of scheduling. Your plan is admirable and probably achievable for you two. It's what I would have preferred for my own wedding this summer. We both wanted to keep it small and informal, but the parents took over and blew up the guest list. Keeping the peace won out over our own wishes in an incremental encroachment. Every guest has found some way to add to our difficulties ("Sure, I'll come, and my boyfriend you didn't invite will come too!) It hasn't been a fun process - lots of tears and drama. We're still under $10k for the total, which I understand is incredibly cheap by modern wedding standards. The average cost is now over $30k.

At the risk of running headfirst into a "that's what you would say" response, there are several points on which the Birdman and I are in agreement, but then we split paths. He is correct that Jews have successfully established a high-trust culture among themselves (or should I say "ourselves," since many would place me ethnically within that group). He is also correct that Jews are doing a good job of out-competing most other cultural/ethnic groups because of said culture. Lastly, he is correct in concluding that this should be the end goal of other cultures that may not be performing as well. Here is where his thinking goes a bit awry: outperforming isn't "exploitation" per se. Exploitation has a specific meaning, which is that you are using, or especially harming, another person for personal advancement. It's an emotionally attractive position to take because it implies a simple solution (simply rid yourself of the exploiter). I'm also sure he could dig up some offensive Biblical passage in support of his argument, but exploitation is not in line with modern-day Jewish values. As an "insider" in this shared culture by birth, I've never once witnessed Jews conspiring to exploit others. They are very much concerned with self-improvement and advancement, yes, but it's done no more maliciously within the group than outside of it. His second, more critical mistake is the apparently assumption that Jews trust each other simply because of their "Jewness." This misses the point. The high-trust culture doesn't exist because person A happens to be X and person B happens to also be X. The high-trust culture exists because X actually means something and has been established as a reliable predictor of other qualities through thousands of years of cultural reinforcement. If somebody is Jewish, you immediately know certain things about them: a)they probably come from a traditional family b)they are probably middle class or higher (less likely to rob you, etc.) and c)they probably had a basic work ethic instilled in them by their parents. This is why his assumption that white Christians - or whoever - can just decide to band together one day and succeed on that basis - without doing any of that hard cultural work - rings hollow. It's the difference between assuming that Michael Jordan was a great basketball player because he was given the opportunity to play on a great team and recognizing that he became a good player first, through years of practice, and was then allowed to play on the team because of it.

Religion is the simplest way at arriving at the target destination, where people police themselves according to inviolable rules of moral conduct instead of utilitarian calculus. The problem is that modern science is cleaning religion's proverbial clock and people are finally waking up to the reality that the "God" concept is a bunch of hooey. We know from countless examples in the 20th century that abolishing religion haphazardly doesn't lead to a better society - quite the contrary because it is easily replaced by a collective where the state fulfills the role of God. We need to replace religion with something else. The way I would explain morality - when it is questioned in depth by the more thoughtful members of our society - is that we need it to preserve a culture in which individuals can remain free and be prosperous. So a type of anti-collective collectivism, aimed at communal behavior that empowers the individual rather than represses and sacrifices him. It's only utilitarian in the broader sense. What we must avoid is individuals behaving out of their own utilitarian weighing and what seems to achieve a greater good in the moment.

I'm happy to see these businesses standing up for themselves. I worked in a building next to Farragut Park last summer and ate lunch there frequently. While I personally found them overpriced and a bit faddish, the food trucks were the main draw of that area and served many of those working there. I never once heard anyone complain about them, and I certainly didn't notice any health or safety issues. Either this is the conceit of the DC central planners imagining up a "problem" that needs fixing, or the association didn't pay their "protection money" this month.

If I've mentioned the following anecdote before, please excuse me. I babysat one time for a middle-aged couple with twin boys, maybe in the 5- to 7-years-old range.They politely welcomed me into their home and began going over the usual ground rules. "Bedtime is at 9, no junk food," and so on. As she spoke, I could hear a low rumbling sound from the basement, like a freight train gradually approaching. The quiet was shattered as the twins bounded in like a pack of hyenas, leaving a wake of destruction in their path - "MOMMY MOMMY I'M GOING TO WATCH TV ALL NIGHT WHY CAN'T I HAVE COOKIES NOW HES HITTING ME-" "NO I'M NOT I WANT THE TV WHERE ARE YOU GOING WHY ARE YOU DRESSED UP I'M NOT GOING TO BED AT 9 TONIGHT." The mother's face contorted violently. "Arghh!! Why are you two doing this? We *talked* about this and you promised to be good. You two are being really bad right now! You're going to be punished if you don't stop! I mean it!" The father came in, "Hey, knock it off right now! You two are going to lose television privileges if you don't stop! We're so sorry for this, we told them they have to behave tonight. You two stop it or you're going to lose television for the whole week!" The parents briskly put on their shoes, grabbed their things, and made their way through the front door with the hyena pack jumping, yipping, and snarling in tow. "We're sorry about this, good luck tonight." I swear to you that the split second that door closed, the boys straightened mid-air, fell to the floor, and calmly walked back to me. "Hi. Want to go to the living room? We'll show you our legos. We're building a castle." They played with legos quietly on the floor until 9, at which point they went upstairs and put themselves to bed while I just stood there.

This reads like a pro se habeas petition. Ask any attorney if that's a good thing.

Regardless of whether there is such thing as an intrinsic good, Rose argues that moral behavior should be instilled in people *as if there is such a thing as intrinsic good* because as soon as we get into outcome weighing, we're back into rank progressive utilitarianism. We should therefore encourage reflexive thinking in our children that we keep our commitments because BREAKING PROMISES IS BAD, and we shouldn't deceive others because LYING IS BAD; end of story. Likewise, the default position should be that the ends never justify the means, and people should be treated as ends in themselves. We might not live up to this standard all the time, but that should be the baseline.

I'm not sure. I posted with the hope of learning more about the degree to which Rand's moral framework fits in line with Rose's. The regulars here are much more familiar with the nuances of objectivist philosophy than I am.

If you aren’t familiar with the phenomenal podcast series available at www.econtalk.org, I highly recommend selecting an episode or two from the archive and listening during your daily commute or exercise. One could select virtually any of the podcasts as a rich starting point for discussion, but one episode in particular had a profound impact on my intellectual framework, and I would like to share it here: www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/01/david_rose_on_t.html In this episode, economist/author David Rose discusses some of the central themes of his book, The Moral Foundation of Economic Behavior, with host of the program Russ Roberts. It’s best to listen to the hour-long podcast for yourself if you have the time, but here is the main idea of his argument: “This book explains why moral beliefs can and likely do play an important role in the development and operation of market economies. It provides new arguments for why it is important that people genuinely trust others-even those whom they know don't particularly care about them-because in key circumstances institutions are incapable of combating opportunism. It then identifies specific characteristics that moral beliefs must have for the people who possess them to be regarded as trustworthy. When such moral beliefs are held with sufficient conviction by a sufficiently high proportion of the population, a high trust society emerges that supports maximum cooperation and creativity while permitting honest competition at the same time.” (Source: Amazon.com) Before adopting Rose’s framework of evaluating economic behavior, I was much more influenced by utilitarian principles such as those espoused by legal theorist/economist Richard Posner. To take an example, Posner’s “efficient breach of contracts” theory – arguably the dominant view in modern jurisprudence - holds that one party should be legally (and morally) free to breach a contract and pay damages to the other party if the overall outcome is more efficient. In the amoral view of contracts, the ends justify the means of the breaching party. Simply evaluate the likely outcome of breach, and if the benefits outweigh the costs, then the actions were justified. Everyone wins in such situations, right? Rose argues that there is no such thing as this free lunch. The costs of Posner ‘s utilitarianism are less easily quantified than the benefits, but nevertheless the costs are very real in the form of eroded social trust. A society in which people act according to a principled moral foundation, Rose explains, is more efficient because individuals will engage in a wide variety of economic behaviors they otherwise could not have in a utilitarian culture because of fear of being sacrificed to a “greater good” or prohibitively high transaction costs. This is one reason why I reject utilitarian tolerance of skyrocketing social security disability fraud as the easiest way of "buying off" individuals who otherwise wouldn’t be able to find employment. I believe - and I think Rose would agree - that tolerating this deceitful behavior fosters a culture in which individuals will breach trust and cheat each other as long as they can identify some benefit outweighing those costs. It’s also why I reject utilitarian platform elements integral to the Progressive movement, such as affirmative action. If individuals fear they are in danger of being sacrificed to a greater good by the elite, they will no longer place trust in the system and they will instead engage in defensive, protectionist behavior with high social and economic costs for everyone. In a world where promises are categorically kept, there is a much lower need for government protectionism. This is why I feel Rose’s position is more in line with libertarian and objectivist principles than Posner’s, and why we should reject progressive utilitarianism and its view that individual eggs are expendable in creating a more perfect social omelet.