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Admitting the Problem
ADMITTING THE PROBLEM....James Joyner bemoans the lack of substance in the conservative blogosphere:
Part of the reason I'm drawn to the center-left blogs [...] while finding it increasingly difficult to find center-right blogs worth my time is that the former are much more likely to get beyond the debates of the 1980 election. There's almost no serious analysis of health care reform, urban planning, education, and many other issues that regularly crop up on the best lefty blogs on their conservative counterparts. If we read about those issues at all, they're framed as if Ronald Reagan were still aspiring to high office: Say No to socialism! Abolish the Department of Education! Government IS the problem!
Right. The world has changed in the past 20 years but conservatism doesn't really seem willing to accept it. Take global warming. Here's the rough conservative reaction to it starting in the early 90s:
It doesn't exist.
It exists but it isn't manmade.
It's manmade, but it's too expensive to do anything about.
Even this is a generous assessment. A lot of conservatives are still stuck at #2, and sizeable chunk at #1. What this means is that they're basically shut out of the conversation entirely. Which is too bad, because I'd actually be sort of interested to hear a conservative take on how to address global warming that accepts both its reality and the necessity of doing something about it. If we really are facing a global environmental catastrophe, what shape would a conservative solution take? I don't think anyone knows. Likewise, conservative reaction to wage stagnation and growing income inequality has gone down a similar road:
It doesn't exist.
It exists, but consumption inequality is what really matters.
??
Our current financial meltdown has pretty much wiped out #2 as a plausible explanation, since the stagnating middle class can no longer borrow to keep up their consumption. But what's #3? Will it be yet another attempt to deny that the problem even exists? Or some kind of interesting conservative take on what to do about it?
Global warming and skyrocketing income inequality are problems that didn't even exist in 1980, which means there is no "Reaganite" solution to appeal to. There might still be conservative takes on these things, but they won't do any good until conservatives actually accept that these are real problems that people genuinely care about. That day still seems pretty far off.
It's not that they deny wage stagnation doesn't exist, they deny it's a problem.
Wages are set by the free market and that is the most perfect efficient way of distributing wealth. QED
1. It doesn't exist.
2. It exists, but consumption inequality is what really matters.
3. It's Clinton/Obama's fault and would go away if we lowered tax rates on the rich.
3. The people who earn stagnant wages should make less anyway. Their labor does not add enough value for the work they perform.
The reason there's no conservative conversation on these topics is that to admit that they exist, that they matter, and that the government must address them is to completely undermine core conservative beliefs. A conservative engaging in the way Kevin imagines is simply no longer a conservative. Acknowledge reality and you end up like John Cole - pretty much indistinguishable from one of the libs.
The South Park Underpants Gnomes had a three-phase business plan, consisting of:
1. Collect underpants
2. ?
3. Profit!
This can also sum up the philosophy of the conservatives during the Bush years. Just substitute anything for number one and skip to the result you want.
For example:
1. Start war with Iraq.
2. ?
3. Victory!
1. Cut taxes for the rich.
2. ?
3. Healthy economy!
You get the gist of it....
JK Galbraith long ago identified what the conervative response to income inequality is: it is a good thing. The poor and middle classes consume almost everything they earn leaving almost nothing for investment. It is only the rich who invest, and without invesment economic progress is unobtainable.
Now, beyond the practical limits of this argument, there is a serious political flaw in it. Basically, anyone advocating this policy is telling most voters that they are "whiners" if they complain about inequality. As we have seen, that doesn't work out that well electorally. So what to do? Well the only real option is to not talk about inequality and divert attention from economic matters by focusing on other things.
That's why Jesse Helms was such a hero. 'Don't develop policy of your own, just say no to theirs.'
I am having trouble finding ANY center-left blogs. It seems that most bloggers that were center left have drifted far too far to the left.
Kevin even wrote a post about his Political Animal blog doing this.
I know the Bush administration and the rest of the wing nuts can force people further to the left.
However, it seems to me we are a center LEFT country right now. I seem to find a bunch of really stupid right wing blogs. Even the Corner has turned into a really stupid blog written by people who hide the fact that they have/had brains.
Find one blogger on the left who would prefer Obama's cabinet to be slightly more to the right. I can show you tons of blogs where they complain Obama's cabinet is too far right. I can show you stupid right wing blogs that wouldn't be happy no matter what and think Obama's cabinet is full of socialists and communists. I can't find anyone who would like Obama's cabinet to be slightly to the right.
I happen to think Obama's cabinet is close to perfect but then I am probably nuts.
So, can anyone name a center or center left blog that is worth reading?
If I can add a fourth:
4) It's manmade, it's expensive to do anything about it but it will be good for us so why bother.
I find that number 4 is gaining a lot of ground.
Best,
Y.
As I recall, global warming was around back in the 70's. At least I remember hearing about it in highschool as a theoretical prediction.
As for the economy, the conservatives see no problem. At the end of the day, the rich will still own everything, just like they do now. It doesn't matter as much if on paper it is worth less money or more money. The point is they've got all the money and therefore have all the power that goes with it. In fact they may increase their share of the money somewhat. This is why Obama's policy for the financial crisis should be "soak the rich".
I forgot to at a chortle and an "as if!". Obama will say "mother may I?" and do whatever he's told my the moneyed interests.
Their are two conservative solutions to all problems:1) cut taxes; 2) stop gay rights
1.It doesn't exist.
2.It exists, but consumption inequality is what really matters.
3. It exists. Tough shit. Or, slightly cleaned up: "let them eat cake."
Anthropogenic global warming and consequent climate change is a scientific reality that has nothing to do with ideology -- although ideology may certainly, and legitimately, inform and guide responses to it.
The so-called "conservative" refusal to recognize the reality of anthropogenic global warming demonstrates that so-called "conservatism" in the USA today is a fake, phony, trumped-up pseudo-ideology concocted by corporate marketeers and used to brainwash and propagandize the American people into supporting the ruthless, rapacious class warfare agenda of America's Ultra-Rich Ruling Class, Inc.
Specifically, in the case of global warming, that means the agenda of the fossil fuel corporations to delay as long as possible the urgently needed, rapid phase-out of their products and the resulting loss of the trillion-dollar profits they would otherwise receive under a business-as-usual scenario.
"Conservatism" is nothing but a propaganda and marketing campaign through which the ultra-rich corporate aristocracy bamboozles large numbers of weak-minded, ignorant dupes into voting against their own best interests to elect right-wing extremist, Republican corporate stooges to high office.
Global warming ... didn't even exist in 1980
Respectfully disagree, Kevin. It was on the horizon, but few "liberals" were willing to talk about it either. Just a few DFH eco-freaks.
Don't get me wrong. I'd rather see liberals than conservatives running the show any damn day, but let's not go pinning too many roses on ourselves.
Kind-hearted liberals have a perennial hope that someday somehow enlightened conservatism will embrace a reform agenda. "Conservatism" is founded on the principled rejection of compulsory state action in economic affairs. This did not begin with Ronald Reagan or Milton Friedman or Barry Goldwater. It began in Britain in the 19th century and all the basic arguments have remained the same. By the end of that century reformist governments which tried to regulate the excesses of industrialization had come into power in many western countries including the United States. In 1884 Herbert Spencer published a book called Man Versus the State in which he argued against the new state powers of reform liberalism. He concludes with a statement that could hung above the entrance of the Heritage Foundation.
"The function of Liberalism in the past was putting a limit on the power of kings. The function of true Liberalism in the future will be that of putting a limit on the powers of Parliaments"
I think many people are surprised that so-called conservatives would reject regulation of arsenic or factors contributing to global warming. But they lamented housing standards, child labor laws and compulsory education and vaccinations in the 19th century. Conservatism is not just anti-democratic it is, as Margaret Thatcher told us, fundamentally anti-social. No other value or concern should impinge upon the virtues of self interest. Winners in the struggle for survival rule by the virtue of winning. It is through the search for absolute liberty they arrived at absolute tyranny.
Kevin wrote: "Global warming and skyrocketing income inequality are problems that didn't even exist in 1980 ..."
With regard to global warming, this is wrong. According to the UC San Diego Environment and Sustainability Initiative:
"This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through ... a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels."
If you were to guess which leading US politician made this statement to Congress, who would you go for: Al Gore? Bill Clinton? Jimmy Carter? It was in fact president Lyndon B Johnson - in 1965.
[...]
By the time Lyndon Johnson issued his warning, the science of global warming had been long understood. In the 1890s, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius calculated that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would lead to global temperature increases of 5-6 degrees. Over 100 years later, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has borne out the uncanny accuracy of his calculations.
In 1957, US scientists Roger Revelle and Hans Suess warned that human-generated greenhouse gases could destabilise the climate, with profound consequences.
The following year another scientist, Charles Keeling, began systematically measuring atmospheric CO2 levels. Within just seven years, Keeling had pinpointed a steady, year-on-year increase in CO2. In early 1965, the US president's Science Advisory Committee stated: "By the year 2000 there will be about 25 per cent more CO2 in our atmosphere than at present and this will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or even national efforts, could occur."
[...]
The evidence continued to build during the 1970s, when US president Jimmy Carter commissioned major studies to examine the likely impact of increasing US coal usage in the wake of the oil shocks. In 1979, the Jason Committee reported that at then-current rates of fossil fuel burning, atmospheric CO2 levels would have doubled by 2035, and this would "perturb . . . [the] climate by altering the radiative properties of the atmosphere".
Understanding of the mechanism of anthropogenic global warming by scientists predates 1980 by nearly a century; scientific appreciation of the serious dangers involved predates 1980 by a generation; and awareness of the danger by national politicians predates 1980 by at least 15 years.
Meanwhile it is also worth noting that a study commissioned by President Harry S. Truman in 1952 advised that with appropriate investments, the US could be getting much of its energy from solar power within a generation, and predicted millions of solar heated houses could be operational by 1975. Then came the Eisenhower administration, and "Atoms For Peace", vast resources squandered on nuclear power and funding for renewable energy gutted (as Reagan would do again after 1980).
It's not really true that there was no "Reaganite" policy to deal with global warming: there was. Reagan had Jimmy Carter's solar panels torn down off the White House roof and aggressively pursued an energy policy designed to enrich the fossil fuel corporations at all costs.
We have wasted an awful lot of precious time.
the sad note is: there are conservative solutions.
cap-and-trade, for example, is a conservative solution: it allows the market to allocate resources.
universal health care (and related safety net matters) are such a conservative solution that hayek approved of them for affluent societies. why? because conservatives favor mobility of labor and capital, and the safety net increases the ability of labor to be mobile.
but the modern conservative movement isn't conservative at all: it's right wing authoritarian, which is a whole 'nother matter.
The sensible conservative take on global warming is soemthing like:
1: Put a price (preferably through a carbon tax) on greenhouse emissions and let the market rip.
2: Don't waste money on all these piecemeal subsidies for the favourite renewable energy scheme of the moment. Governments have an awful track record of technology prognostication.
3: There should be a uniform global price for carbon, allowing reductions to be made where cheapest.
4: Nuclear power should be in the mix, at least as an option (though some conservatives don't like Price-Anderson, which makes the government the insurer of last resort for the nuclear industry).
5: China and India have to participate in a global scheme. There's no alternative.
6: If geoengineering can be shown to work, and cheaper than reducing emissions directly, go for it.
Frankly, it should be possible to find common ground on the issue with sensible conservatives.
The trouble is that there's just too few of them out there, particularly in the United States.
. But what's #3? Will it be yet another attempt to deny that the problem even exists? Or some kind of interesting conservative take on what to do about it?
#3 is, obviously: It exists, and it's a Good Thing, as the more money at the top, the greater the trickle-down (see, good Reaganite idea).
As for a conservative take on 'what to do about it', ain't no sech animal: conservatives don't -do- anything (except cut taxes, which is more a not-doing than otherwise).
Governments have an awful track record of technology prognostication.
Yeah, too bad that whole Internet thing didn't work out. Otherwise we'd be able to discuss these issues while we're supposed to be working.
Tax cuts! Tax cuts! Tax cuts! There is no problem that can't be helped by a tax cut.
You don't need no stinkin education to be a conservative. The decision-making algorithm is built-in to the host candidate. Tax cuts, big military, no government.
neil wilson asks: "So, can anyone name a center or center left blog that is worth reading?"
Answer: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/
Robert Merkel wrote: "The sensible conservative take on global warming is soemthing like ... Nuclear power should be in the mix, at least as an option ..."
And what exactly is "conservative" about nuclear power?
Perhaps the fact that not one single nuclear power plant has ever been built anywhere in the world without massive government subsidies and other market interventions?
The fact that Wall Street won't invest a single penny in nuclear power unless the taxpayers underwrite all the risks -- and not only the risks of catastrophic accident, through the Price-Anderson Act which you mention, but the risk of huge financial losses if a nuclear plant proves to be economically unviable once it is built?
Nuclear power is the poster child of a Soviet Stalinist state-run dinosaur industry -- the fact that it is considered "conservative" is, as I noted above, further evidence that so-called "conservatism" in the USA today is a content-free pseudo-ideology that is more of a corporate marketing scam than an actual political philosophy.
neil needs to meet some real leftists so he will understand how far right this country is. Since American leftists are extinct, we will have to import some from Europe and crossbreed with local stock in hope of restoring the species.
The Democrats have taken over the niche on the right that the Republicans used to fill. We now need to start a party on the left to fill that niche.
Jim Manzi has been trying to make a case for a conservative approach to global warming at The American Scene and in the National Review for a while.
As I understand him:
1) Global warming is real and man-made
2) Liberal approaches to addressing the issue are hysterical, expensive, and economically catastrophic
3) By acknowledging 1) and exploting 2), conservatives can turn global warming into a wedge issue.
(He does have a policy proposal mixed in with the politics; I believe it is mostly oriented around developing new technologies to reduce and capture carbon emissions, but I'm not sure.)
How we've managed to turn a question of environmental science into a right-left issue befuddles me.
It should be remembered that one of the first major world leaders, who spoke about global warming, and spoke about it to GW Bush, was one Margaret Thatcher, MA Oxon (Oxford) Chemistry.
She understood the problem better than her civil servants.
Her opponents thought this was only to get Sizewell B (Britain's first Pressurised Water nuclear reactor) built, which required a special tax on electricity bills. Also as part of her long term plan to eviscerate the coal miners' unions.
But in truth there was real science in the woman, and she saw the danger.
Between the 'dash for gas' in electricity generation, and Sizewell B, Mrs. T has done more in the struggle against global warming than any subsequent British Prime Minister, including Blair (who talks a good game, but did little).
Wrongshore
Newt Gingrich (and Bjorn Lomberg) have gone down similar tracks.
But they ignore:
- technological change is only embodied in the capital stock if it is economic. Without a carbon price, there is no incentive for manufacturers and consumers to factor carbon emissions into their decisions
- if the marginal damage curve of CO2 rises steeply with emissions and/ or if there are 'thresholds' above which damage is increased irreversibly and non-linearly
THEN
the 'slow and techie' approach doesn't work. It's the worst kind of the Niven-Pournelle 'technology will solve all our problems' science fiction (which is true, in the long run, but as above, the long run could be just too d-mned late).
Conservatives, if they believe in GW, tend to favour highly centralised and subsidised solutions (read nuclear) down to breeder reactors. They believe the dangers of same are much overstated. They also systematically overstate the (undoubted) benefits of expansive nuclear plants-- it's not credible that the US in 2030 will get more of its electricity from nukes than it does now (John McCain's 40 new stations would simply replace the existing stock-- they would be bigger, but so then would US electricity demand).
And inevitably the national security state, and the centralised utility companies, would have to be bigger to deliver and secure such a solution and deal with its waste.
I think conservatives like nukes, in part because some environmentalists hate them. It's culture wars all over again.
Valuethinker wrote: "I think conservatives like nukes, in part because some environmentalists hate them."
Undoubtedly that's true, since so-called "movement conservatism" in the USA today has no real content except hatred of "liberals", much as the pseudo-ideology of 1930s brownshirts had no real content other than hatred of "Jews".
Whatever conservatives were, all they are now are con men.
Their answer to all problems is
4: Who cares about that GAYS WANT TO RUIN MARRIAGE!
How do liberal blogs handle the national debt problem and the necessity to cut spending?
By advocating more spending. LOL.
actually it hasn't wiped out #2
consumption inequality is what matters! and the most people are consuming a lot less because of the crisis compared to the top end
Luther: I believe they point out that, only a decade ago, there was no deficit and the debt was shrinking, even with tax rates at about Reagan-era levels.
Now, how do conservative blogs handle the problem, other than to propose non-specific spending cuts with no mechanism to pass and implement those proposals?
SecularAnimist: I think nukes are fine, I know you think they're evil. The fact is that a substantial fraction of the people calling themselves conservatives in the United States (and elsewhere) think that nuclear power should be an option on the table to deal with it.
I think you've got quite a good point on the requirements for government oversight and management of a nuclear industry, for what it's worth.
Frankly, even if you oppose nukes, if accepting new nuclear plants what it takes to get conservatives on board to sign up to strong cuts in greenhouse emissions it's a deal I suggest is well worth making.
Income inequality is the Reaganite solution. Equality is communist.
Secular Animist,
Thanks for the GW history! I had no idea it was postulated so long ago. I thought perhaps mid-60's when Gore became acquainted with the idea.
As for the conservative take on global warming, isn't it just to rely on technical progress in order to survive it IF it happens? Think bio-domes, etc. Not to worry about all of earth's other species.
You ask: "I'd actually be sort of interested to hear a conservative take on how to address global warming..."
Answer: cut the tax on capital gains.
Next question.
Part of reality is that all energy sources, not just nuclear, are heavily subsidized, think of, for example coal mining (the subsidy is at the mine head and in the costs of repairing the environmental damage) and so on.
You wonder about "conservative reaction to wage stagnation and growing income inequality..."
Answer: the flat tax.
"Which is too bad, because I'd actually be sort of interested to hear a conservative take on how to address global warming that accepts both its reality and the necessity of doing something about it. If we really are facing a global environmental catastrophe, what shape would a conservative solution take?"
A point which shows us how corrupted libertarians and paleoconservatives have become -- focused on the end of reducing government the closest to zero we can make it regardless of what the function is, instead of the means, which recognizes when the public wants government to do something, then it is the function of government to do it, and which focuses on sharpening regulation to only that which will be effective in accomplishing what the public wants.
Of course, that's why today's liberals -- who accept the premise of government effectiveness in its programs -- are closer to genuine libertarians than the so-called conservatives who dominate the Republican Party.
I first heard of the greenhouse effect in an Isaac Asimov science column in F&SF in 1965 or 1966. I gave a presentation based on it in my high school biology class, for extra credit. Ursula K. Leguinn's 1971 novel "Lathe of Heaven" takes place in Portland Oregon in 2022. Global warming is a part of the background. Unfortunatley, Asimov and Leguinn were/are liberal science fiction writers. If only RAH had addressed the issue!! Perhaps then the consies would face the facts.
Listen, I think we can all agree that there is but one single solution to all our problems. That is an amendment to the United States Constitution specifically banning gay marriage as well as legalizing kicking gays in the shin whenever you see them.
-GOP
FYI, Kevin: re, economic inequality, the correct right-wing answer to #3 is "Of course it exists, and it's a good thing, too!"
This is the doctrine of Kevin Murphy and many of his fellow University of Chicago-type economists. Inequality is a positive good, you see, because it rewards effort and hard work. Otherwise who would ever have any incentive to bestir themselves to do anything at all?
And as we know, the market perfectly rewards everyone in exact proportion to the effort they expend. Right?
Right??