Steve Benen makes a very good point about who’s really in the OBAMA SHOULD BE DOING MORE crowd:
Of course, shortly before George Will’s remarks, there was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), blasting the president on the same program for being “timid and passive” when he’d like to see Obama “speak truth to power.”
…seeing Will and Graham on opposite sides of this reminds me of a point that often goes overlooked: we’re not dealing with a dynamic that pits the left vs. the right, or Dems against Republicans. Rather, this is a situation featuring neocons vs. everyone else.
You’ll notice that President Obama’s strategy has not only been endorsed by Democratic lawmakers, but also prominent Republicans who are in office (Dick Lugar), served in Republican administrations (Henry Kissinger, Gary Sick, and Nick Burns), or are prominent Republican voices in the media (George Will, Peggy Noonan, and Pat Buchanan).
Neoconservatism is a fringe ideology. It’s even difficult to find Wise Old Men — of the sort who co-chair Baker-Hamilton, Daschle-Dole style blue ribbon panels — who subscribe to it. Normally, that dooms an ideology to obscurity, regardless of its merits. But neoconservatism is different, and I don’t know why.
If you want to get a good feeling for how kooky the whole neocon outlook is, I recommend reading about the J curve:
The idea is that by introducing instability to a repressive regime, you initially make things worse in terms of both stability and openness, but then, once you hit rock bottom on both, you start to get better on both. This explains why it’s a good idea to completely destabilize countries, rather than hope for any kind of gradual reform.
Let me pose the following question: has any policy good ever come from the discussion of curves? Laffer curve, Bell curve, J curve. What is it about a picture of a curve that strips all intelligence and reason out of a discussion?
My guess is that they have mystical pull which leads people to believe they encapsulate some general truth that EXPLAINS EVERYTHING, the same way that the writings of Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, and the Founding Fathers do, only better, because graphs are more both more reductionist and more faux scientific.
Update. In the interest of fairness and accuracy, I should include framing as one of the things that EXPLAINS EVERYTHING. There’s no need to be too partisan about this.
Update. Commenter Redshift makes a good point:
I think the mindset behind these “curves” is similar to that of various “doctrines”; the problem comes from the belief that the curve itself is a fundamental truth, rather than an illustration of underlying data (which can then be debated, falsified, etc.) This is why they are always shown with no units, not even at the maximum. For example, the Laffer curve shows the no-brainer that there is a level of taxation where it is possible to cut taxes and raise revenue; take away the scale, and you can make the argument that cutting taxes from where we are now raises revenue (if you’re either intellectual dishonest or in the throes of confirmation bias.)
Compare this to the so-called “hockey stick” global warming graph. To scientists, this is just an illustration of data, and the underlying data is what’s up for debate. To wingnuts, it’s a major point of debate; if they can “prove” that it is in any way incorrect, then global warming is a lie.
eric
You asked why is neo-conservatism different. Although you are correct that it is a fringe ideology, it is an ideology held and spouted by non-fringe people. And by that I mean members of the Sally Quinn Society. This is “civil society.” These people are known as serious people by virtue of personal interaction. By contrast and for a simple example, Michael Moore’s politics is not fringe, but he is a fringe person to that “Society,” and as such he can be demonized.
Neocon sources long learned how to use access as currency to generate and maintain relationships with reporters and columnists who care less about being right than they do about being first. So, these reporters (see Judy Miller) no longer apply cynisicm and skepticism to get at the source’s real motivation because the story will be news and hence self-justifying regardless of the agenda.
eric
valdivia
you know what just burns–aside from the usual idiocy of this–is that Robert Dahl one of the foremost American thinkers on theories of democracy and democratization showed that regimes that go through instability first do not yield the kind of open democracies that the neocons advocate. But hey they never let the data get in the way of their own ideology. There is a ton of research on democracy and democracy formation and the one thing everyone agrees with is that you cannot engineer it as these idiots tend to think you can. We do seem know what makes democracies stable and endure (papers by people like Rodrik and Velasco and Adam Przeworski) but not what makes them happen. But again, why let knowledge get in the way of their romantic imagining?
Jack Roy
And don’t get me started on Curves gym.
Comrade Stuck
Because it has a swashbuckling aura about it. And swashbuckling sells. Never mind it’s promoted largely by draft dodgers and chickenhawks. Nobody cares about that when it’s showtime.
DougJ
Actually, not as much as you’d think. That’s part of my point here. George Will and Peggy Noonan are as Village as it gets and they’re not neoconservatives. It’s hard to think of a real Sally Quinn type — someone who was quote in the article that spawned the term Villager — who is a neoconservative. Fred Hiatt is, and that’s about it.
Steve
Glenn Greenwald was the first writer I saw make this point. Here’s what he wrote in July 2006:
Redshift
I think the mindset behind these “curves” is similar to that of various “doctrines”; the problem comes from the belief that the curve itself is a fundamental truth, rather than an illustration of underlying data (which can then be debated, falsified, etc.) This is why they are always shown with no units, not even at the maximum. For example, the Laffer curve shows the no-brainer that there is a level of taxation where it is possible to cut taxes and raise revenue; take away the scale, and you can make the argument that cutting taxes from where we are now raises revenue (if you’re either intellectual dishonest or in the throes of confirmation bias.)
Compare this to the so-called “hockey stick” global warming graph. To scientists, this is just an illustration of data, and the underlying data is what’s up for debate. To wingnuts, it’s a major point of debate; if they can “prove” that it is in any way incorrect, then global warming is a lie.
eric
@DougJ: That is not my exact point. My point also explains why people such as Will still are extolled as real thinkers despite being wrong nearly 100% of the time.
My point is that being a member of that Society is what makes one’s views printable, not that being a member makes one a neocon.
I would bet that Froomkin either (1) was not an active member of that click or (2) made members of that click very uncomfortable.
Membership has its privileges.
passerby
And let’s not forget that popular symbol of every noble American patriot, the flag lapel pin. By wearing it, you need not have to explain or defend yourself, the flag pin says it all.
Conversely, NOT wearing one will actually CAUSE you to have to explain and defend yourself.
Marshall
This is of course classic marxist thinking – don’t do anything to relieve poverty (say) as that will delay the revolution and the revolution is the only way to really help the poor.
I have always figured that the neo-cons are really trotskyites or somesuch, just under deep cover. They for sure do not believe in democracy in any meaningful sense.
latts
Neoconservatism is different because it absolutely relies on assertions of authority, and a sense of authority is really what we mean when we talk about the Village being wired (h/t Josh Marshall) for Republicans. There’s an understanding of status and hierarchy hardwired in the DC establishment that can easily be extrapolated into foreign policy that no one really wants to take the trouble to understand, much less to accept its ambiguities. Basically, just as the GOP are the Serious, Disciplined Realists of Beltway insiderdom– I always think of them as the mid-century Brylcreem-and-horn-rimmed-glasses white guys– the US is the Final Arbiter of All Questions of Liberty worldwide. It’s a simple, appealing, comfortable, self-justifying narrative.
valdivia
@Marshall:
they were all trotskyites–at least the first generation. Krystol father in particular. See documentary “Arguing the world” about this exactly. It also explains the doctrinal purity tests.
Comrade Stuck
They are the Imperialists with the heart of gold. American style imperialism, we’ll kill your enemies and make you free. Just thank us and give us your gold. The old cumbersome method of economic exploitation just takes too long. Not like the speed and clarity of the bullet.
Derelict
Presenting even the dumbest ideas in the form of a curve pre-empts all debate or discussion. In the case of the “J-curve,” whoever proffers it will look at you bug-eyed if you try to discuss it intelligently. Can’t you see that IT’S ALL RIGHT THERE!!!!!! Look at the curve!!!!1!1!
Now, there’s no need to think about or discuss present conditions, possible unwanted outcomes, time-lines, or anything else. If we just do X, things will move along axis Y to produce curve J.
Consider the Laffer Curve. Everyone who prattles on about says the same thing: Lower taxes produces higher revenues. If you try to engage them in a discussion about present conditions and where those conditions put us on the curve right now, they look at you like you have three heads. Present conditions don’t matter: If we just lower taxes, it’s OBVIOUS that revenues will rise. Can’t you see that it’s all right there?
CalD
I’m so over Steve Benen. I mean first, I happen to personally know some folks on the left who are also absolutely convinced that a) the Iranian elections were unquestionably rigged (a real possibility I’ll admit, although Ahmadinejad does appear to have enjoyed some very real structural advantages, like it or not), b) Mousavi is some kind of saint and savior on a shining white horse and c) the USA should be doing something about this, even if it’s wrong. They just don’t get invited on Sunday talk shows — apparently you have to be Republican for that these days, I’m not sure why… Also, it may very well be true that all neocons are halfwits, but it remains that not all halfwits are neocons and Graham would be a case in point.
Michael T Sweeney
Iron law of bad thinking:
Strong ideological belief + Graph that appears to confirm belief = Stronger belief
Elie
Valdivia @ # 2 —
Excellent point…
Another perspective that I thought was important this morning was the sense that Iran had been undergoing “revolution” to ultimately achieve democracy and freedom beginning way back when it shed the Shah, unfortunately got the clerics and is in the process of shedding them — but that its “goal” is to always move towards the democracy they ultimately seek… (it was said much more clearly and convincingly this morning when I first heard it but hope that you get the drift through my second hand characterization of what was said)
JasonF
Memorandum
To: Every Republican Who Said, in 2001-2008, that Politics Must Stop at the Waters Edge and is Now Criticizing President Obama’s Policy Toward Iran
From: JasonF
Re: Go Fuck Yourselves
You know who you are. Go fuck yourselves.
Elie
…and to continue the thought that I abandoned prematurely — that we always think of revolution as quick and dramatic, but that revolution is many times long and takes many steps, some backwards before correcting itself…
I take great comfort in that for the things that I think will need a “revolution” to accomplish in this country — such as true universal health care. We need to be ready to do the multi year dig in and push and push and push — to not be dissuaded by how hard it is going to be or how long it will take….the failing old paradigm will not call the shots ultimately — we just have to be persistent and just.not.stop —
I am SOOO invigorated by what is happening in Iran! It is going to shake up so much of the world in so many ways!!! (at least that is my hope)…
RSA
Exactly. I think there are powerful cognitive biases that are elicited by curves like this one. First, that these are the only two variables that matter, and more specifically that whatever is on the x-axis is the only factor relevant to whatever is on the y-axis. Second, that the x variable causes the y variable, so that if you manipulate x properly you get the y values you want. This is kinda rarely if ever the case in the real world, though you can see how it might be appealing to the Laffer and J curve crowd.
Woody
I think it was Voltaire who described the “ideal” form of government as “democracy, tempered with assassination.”
valdivia
@Elie:
thanks Elie.
Your point is actually another good one. We should recall that what got the neocons going is this idea of The End of History that every country after the defeat of the Evil Empire would be marching towards democracy because, um, We Won!
The thing is that Iran has been organically moving towards a freer system, trying to, their own idea of that, but that does not make it, will never make it, the democracy that the neocons imagine it will be or they want it to be. Their push to Do More Now! is just part of this idea that if only we try harder the end of history will come to everyone else. Change comes and it never looks like what you thought it would but the neocons never learn, not even after Iraq.
dmsilev
As a former TA for a freshman physics lab class, that graph makes me want to reach for the nearest red pen. Lack of units and labels on a plot would be an automatic ten point penalty (out of a hundred, so basically a full letter grade down on that particular lab). As noted above, a graph without any units or numbers is basically meaningless if you’re trying to have an intellectually honest discussion.
-dms
eric
@eric: to briefly continue my own point —
Newspapers are dying because the business model is failing. Right now newspapers are targetted at the same person: the person with disposable income because that is who the advertisers are after.
In terms of class divisions, lower to middle class sports fans may buy some papers, but ESPN has made a next day written paper obsolete.
upper middle class to upper class paper buyers (just look at the ads in the NYT) are too few to support a newspaper’s real news gathering operations because the circulation is not large enough to merit high ad pricing. Thus, even though the rich got richer, there are not enough rich people to keep newspapers afloat because there is no excess consumption of a daily newspaper.
The neocons are targetted toward the upper middle class to upper class paper buyers who want to perpetuate American hegemony as a means to profit. Thus, there is an audience that wants to read this people, but there are not enough of them to sustain newspapers such as the Post of the Times.
The same is true for the Wills and Millers of the world….they are writing to, and for the benefit of, the national and international “rent seekers” who are the principle targets of the advertisments of Rolexes and other high-end designer goods.
back to work.
eric
BC
I don’t think you can leave the Israeil- Palestinian conflict out of who is neoconservative. This issue has been dominant since at least 1970, with Black September, and the numerous intifadas and terrorist attacks since. Think – if the Israel-Palestinian conflict is solved and there is no longer the suffering Palestinian people to be used as raison d’etre, then we can have peace. There are Americans who want to solve this issue by having Israel annex the occupied territories, thus ridding us of this issue once and for all. After all, if there are no occupied territories, then Israel cannot be in violation of international law on how to handle an occupation, right? The neocons even used support for Israel in the last election, finding that Obama did not have the open-throated, no-holds-barred support for Israel that McCain did. In this scenario, whoever is Israel’s enemy is the US enemy. And, lest you think this is an anti-Semitic rant, remember that some of the open-throated, no-holds-barred support for Israel comes from the religious right, who really want that rapture to come in their time. From the religious right point of view, there were no people living in Israel or the occupied territories until after 1948 when the Arabs moved in solely to oppose the Israeli state. No, really.
Elie
Excellent and informative comments today to all —
Many many good comments…
Eric — so right on — hadnt thought of the demise of the newspapers that way but it makes sense in the argument that you make…
Of course it also opens up a real opportunity if someone can exploit it ..
Excellent points as well by RSA and dmsilev and many others — points about the graph reflecting the underlying data versus presenting a reality independent of that…
Thanks!
eric
@BC: an excellent point, because if you look back historically at the opinions of the NYT, you will see strident support for Israel, which allowed anti-Palestinean neocons access to the Times’ opinion pages.
eric
Martin
Er, jocks vs. nerds, actually.
dbrown
@valdivia: Yes, but you missed THE key point! Iran was marching to democracy in the 1950’s and in fact, quickly obtained a true one after having free and fully democratic elections. We, using the CIA overthrew that democracy (killing the Premier) and installed an absolute and very evil dictator that controlled the country until 1970 something.
Go figure why they are not thrilled with us (yet 100,000+ protested against the 9-11 hijackers and in support of us … again, go figure.)
Phoebe
I love this and will bookmark it. The last thing worthy of such honor was this:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f3a2605847/craigslist-penis-photographer-featuring-bob-odenkirk-from-fod-team
So. Yeah. Perfection.
El Cid
One fundamental, simplistic axiom that the hawk / liberal hawk interventionists will not admit to is the simple understanding that, yes, terrible situations can be made worse.
So places like Burma or Zimbabwe have people suffering horribly from a horrible government, but then the lazy, thoughtless intervention types (who simply demand that some general category of ‘something’ be done, or ‘something military’ without any real outlining of what and with what likely consequences) just don’t admit into discussion that it’s also easy to make the already hellish lives of those citizens into ultra-hellish nightmares.
It’s the same sorts of people who pretended to be deeply horrified at the suffering of Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge regime but who didn’t give the slightest shit about those same Cambodians as we carpet bombed the rural peasantry into the hands of the Khmer Rouge.
It’s the same sorts of people who scream about the dangers of Marxist tyranny in Guatemala but who happily and eagerly support genocidal evangelical generals who carry out a multi-year extermination campaign against Mayan and hill dwelling Guatemalans.
They don’t give the slightest shit about what actually happens to the people in whatever society you’re discussing, and the purpose of the graphs and the phrases and the slogans are simply to get them to the policy they want, and they don’t care what is and isn’t true.
tamiasmin
“The idea is that by introducing instability to a repressive regime, you initially make things worse in terms of both stability and openness…”
But the J curve, as depicted, shows openness increasing continuously. Having it get worse and then better would require a V curve, I think, or at least a back-and-forth movement.
valdivia
@dbrown:
yes exactly. Because during the Cold War democracy did not matter, what mattered was that the sons of a bitches were ours and on our side right? Once the Cold War ended *then* everyone could march towards democracy (with the exception of those against us in the War on terror, but that only happened later, for a few years the end of history and the march towards democracy was *the thing*)
The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge
I agree on the stupidity of these curves the right-wingers wave around, but the J-curve is exceptionally stupid.
The Laffer curve at least has two real and measurable quantities on each axis: tax rate and tax revenues. The shape of it may be wrong, since Laffer pulled it out of his ass, but undoubtedly, it’s zero at both ends and peaks in the middle. Derelict got it right above, though; they absolutely refuse to consider where we are on the curve. We’ve run an experiment to test that for the last 30 years, and the result is less ambiguous than any scientific experiment in the history of the world: nothing could be clearer than that we were on the left (upward) side of the curve 30 years ago, and have been going down towards zero the whole time since. What use is a curve if you refuse to read the results off it?
The Bell curve has population on one axis, and “General Intelligence” on the other. Many people think that there is such a definite quality and that it can be measured. They’re wrong on both counts, but at least there is a supposedly measurable quantity on both axes.
The J-curve, though, has measurable quantities on neither axis! “Stability?” Openness?” What the Hell are they? How do you measure them? What are the units? To compare this to the Laffer curve is egregiously unfair–to the Laffer curve. Which is pretty sad because remember Arthur Laffer just pulled that whole thing out of his ass and scribbled it on a napkin! Here the curve and the qualities on both axes are created out of whole cloth!
The whole Laffer Curve Religion™ that has driven the country off a cliff is a fringe ideology. (Unfortunately it’s controlled the country for 30 years.) Neoconservtism is way beyond any identifiable fringe, in Airy-Fairy land, with their own language of meaningless words that sane people can’t even hear. It needs to be exposed as such.
Laura W
@Elie:
This one was really good for me:
Brachiator
@Redshift:
Yours is an excellent summation of the use of pseudo-information by neo-cons and others.
The irony is that these folk love to claim that they are being rational, hard-headed and scientific when they are actually peddling nonsense. The deeper irony is that these folk don’t even understand why their curves are flawed or meaningless.
Exactly. And even if you could define what the two quantities are, the supposed curve just links two arbitrary things, and does not demonstrate in any way how one relates to the other. You might as well have a curve for movie ratings and cheese.
MattF
The various ‘curve’ arguments look and sound quantitative, but are actually qualitative. There’s nothing wrong, in principle, with qualitative arguments, as long as you understand their limitations and the location of their difficulties. The two big limitations are that they are scale-free and (despite claims to the contrary) it’s somewhere between difficult and impossible to identify the controlling variables. So, e.g., one should ask, “Um, ‘stability’ and ‘openness’… Could you say what you mean by that?”
Elie
Laura W:
Ha,ha,ha,ha,,, snort snort, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha — wipe tear..
thanks
tc125231
@El Cid:
Pavlov's Dog
From Special Ed:
I count at least four strawmen in one sentence.
kay
@JasonF:
I think it’s just politics, in this case.
Lindsey Graham wants to repeat the words “timid and passive” and “Obama” is some proximity.
Am I supposed to believe Lindsey Graham is yearning to “speak truth to power” a half a world away? Baloney. Since when?
A Mom Anon
In my very uninformed opinion,it’s all a game to them. It’s really not much more than that There’s no dead bodies,blood,suffering or sorrow,just the fucking charts and who wins the parlor games they think up.
kay
@A Mom Anon:
The neoconservative who made me laugh was Wolfowitz. He argues that Obama has considerable appeal in that part of the world, so should expend that capitol in support of the protestors.
No mention of why the protestors are not turning to US neoconservatives for guidance in nation-building.
If George W Bush and the neoconservative loonies are the spiritual “fathers” of this uprising, why are the protestors looking to that weak ninny appeasnik Obama for inspiration?
eric k
This is why I don’t get upset when they nominate republicans to foreign policy positions. The split isn’t between Dems and Reps, I’ll take Lugar and any number of republicans on Foreign Policy over Lieberman any day.
As far as the Neocons go, at least the true believers are actually insane and sticking to their principles, their nuts but their consistent in their lunacy.
McCain and Graham are another matter, the fact that they don’t actually have any examples of what they think Obama should be doing or saying differently says it all, they are simply playing politics pure and simple, it is disgusting.
Here is what Obama said most recently:
DougJ
I agree. There isn’t much difference between Bush I realism and Clinton realism and Obama realism (there’s probably some difference, but not that much). Just keep the neocons’ fingers away from the button and I’m happy.
Nellcote
a must read via Juan Cole on the NOT black and whiteness of it all:
http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/lyons-khameneis-past-power-play-against.html
MikeJ
No scale? Isn’t it obvious that after bottoming out a country will gain freedom at a rate of 23 reagans per fortnight?
David
Ah, the shock doctrine. Knock everything off balance so badly that everyone in the society will accept whatever the authority tells them, as long as they provide order. Luminaries have used these principles often, helped along by the Chicago boys and more recently, the neocons.
Blowback is the only thing that might ever stop them. Literally, unless they see how their actions create a nuclear war that obliterates Jerusalem, I don’t know what would make these fools shut their pie holes.
Nellcote
#23
a logo.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Instead of just attacking the J-curve as an obvious piece of dishonest pedantry, let’s grant the possibility of it having some limited merit if applied to the right circumstances, and see where that leads.
Mass media (e.g. the US MSM) are very much like political systems, are they not? Is not our MSM a shaky sort of semi-democratic system for the production and consumption of infotainment, where in this analogy media outlets = political parties, pundits = candidates, and viewers/readers = voters. Given this analogy, where does our MSM fall on a hypothetical media J-curve plotting stability vs. openness?
Let’s take a look and see what we find – from wikipedia bios:
David Broder – 1st appearred on MTP in 1963. Has been with the WaPo since 1966. That’s almost half a century.
George Will – began with National Review in 1972, joined Newsweek in 1976, WaPo in 1979. The Shah of Iran was still sitting on the Peacock throne when Will made into big media.
Charles Krauthammer – began writing for TNR in 1981, his WaPo column followed in 1985. Leonid Brezhnev was still ruling the Soviet Union when Charles began climbing his way up the greasy media pole.
etc., etc.
In terms of stability, if the Village were a political system, they would be the equivalent of say Spain under Franco. It takes a half-century or more (i.e., basically attrition via natural mortality) to reshuffle the players. What about openness – what is the media equivalent? Offhand I’d say diversity of opinion. What does our media look like, when we contemplate the ideological divide spanning say from Brit Hume to Brian Williams? Hmm..not very diverse either.
So where do our big media fall on the J-Curve? Looks to me like over on the upper left side, where high stability meets low openness. Conclusion (using the neocon methodology to solving these problems) – we need to destroy the Village in order to save it. Burn that sucker down – burn it to the ground. After all, what’s a little destruction between friends if in the long run it leads to greater openness, neh?
Perhaps the J-curve isn’t so bad after all, when you apply it to the right people. Perhaps the Village needs to take a dose of their own medicine first, before prescribing it to others. Of course as Obama pointed out during his remarks at the Radio and TV correspondants dinner (when he made an indirect joking reference to turmoil in their industry and problems with their failling business models and got back a mix of nervous laughter and boos in the way of audience reaction), “Ho ho. We don’t joke about that, huh? That’s not funny.”
Funny how that works, when it’s applied to you, isn’t it Villagers? Some doctors don’t want to swallow their own medicine, apparently.
AhabTRuler
Let’s parachute him into Tehran, I bet he would go over like gangbusters there. He can be Khameni’s new BFF!
Comrade Stuck
This is also Obama, the uber political pragmatist at work. Though it’s not true, he picks them to satisfy the myth that RW’s are better at foreign policy and national defense, tougher, smarter and all the other horseshit wingnuts have been pushing since Vietnam, though that meme took a big hit with Iraq.
Because he knows he controls the narrative and real policy and can keep them in a box if push comes to shove. It also feeds the narrative of bi-partisanship he blathered in the campaign, thus tempering wingnuts wails of being left out. And in some cases, like Huntsman, he can exile a potential political opponent for 2012. win/win/win all around until it isn’t/ This can work, but sometimes it turns about and bites, IE Louie Free etc…. it’s a tricky game and so far no probs, but we’ll see down the road.
geg6
I have spent half a lifetime trying to understand these people and why and how they think what they do. And I still have no real idea why they think that simply stating a set of numbers with no context, citing a curve on a graph with no data or understanding of the relationships among the data, no ability to see or admit that the world is almost always ambiguous. The best I’ve come up with is that they simply haven’t been able to move past the early adolescent stage of human development. We all had a point in our lives, usually around 12-16 or so, where we created our own truths which we defended regardless of all evidence to the contrary and did it vehemently and with greatly outraged passion against any disagreement, nitpicking, or even the most gentle of crticism. In fact, anyone less than in 100% agreement with us was the enemy and thus actively working and scheming against us. Almost all of us grow out of this, but neocons never do. And they stay in that hostile, paranoid adolescent crouch all their lives and inflict their zero-sum games of Stratego and Risk on the rest of the world never taking into account all the collateral damage, blood, and misery they leave in their wake. Becuase they can’t. They have never developed the mature mechanism to do that. Neoconservatism should be in the next edition of the DSM, just as any other mental or emotional developmental disorder is.
Comrade Stuck
Eric
I know my comment wasn’t related to your quote. I just used it as a springboard to go in another direction.
LD50
“We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
Is there ANY example that the neocons can point to of this idea, actually, like, working? Or is it just more of their ivy-tower college boy theorizing?
ronathan richardson
Redshift’s comment really opened my eyes on this. As someone that deals with models and data for a living, I’ve always mildly respected the way republicans referred to some of these curves, in so much as they at least pay some attention to expert opinion.
But divorcing these curves from any empirical data is remarkably revealing of how little practical utility modern conservatism has to offer. Take crime and punishment, for example, where conservatives have some vision of an inverse relationship between breadth and intensity of our criminal punishment system and rate of criminal activity. Of course, this makes sense in general terms, as deterrent effects appeal to our sense of reason. But the empirical data in virtually every country of the world shows that this doesn’t work. And there are similar obvious truths within the realms of education and healthcare, where we have these vague, incentive-based concepts for policy prescription, but refuse to look at any actual data points. It drives me nuts.
gnomedad
@dbrown:
For the neocons, history seems to begin a few months before the most recent war they start. Ignorance is Strength.
gnomedad
@ronathan richardson:
Yes. You start by supplying a couple of end points by reductio ad absurdum arguments, then invent a curve to connect them that says anything you want. E. g., nobody in jail => lots of crime; everybody in jail => no crime; therefore …
Chuck Butcher
It seems as thought the GIGO concept from my stoneage education misses them. It is as though the pretty object distracts them completely from the smell of standing in a shitpile.
El Cid
@gnomedad: You may recall that Krauthammer recently dismissed that point as irrelevant, saying that some CIA rent-a-mob doesn’t ‘justify’ the heavy handed clerics today, thus once again freeing oneself from giving a shit about thinking of the predictable consequences of one’s actions — there are only goals and intentions and proclaimed aims, and anything that goes ‘wrong’ is simply someone else’s problem, either that of a minor functionary or some other lesser soul.
Little Dreamer
It’s like religion, entirely based on faith and nothing else.
JL
@geg6: I’m just talking about my own family members, but sometimes it’s hard to admit you are wrong. Look at John who tried to stay faithful long after he knew he was reading bullshit. Eric was correct in stating that the NYTimes appeals to high end retailers and advertisers but they always have. That was part of the allure. The difference now is the cost. There is a point where folks say sorry, can’t afford it. Even though I live in the South, I have had NYTimes delivery for decades. I cut back to just Sundays but at $32.00 a month, I don’t think so. They have priced the ordinary folks out of the market. The NYTimes stopped calling bullshit when they hired Judith Miller and Tom Friedman.
Little Dreamer
@geg6:
Funny, I think I said this very thing just a couple of weeks ago.
Anne Laurie
Ah, yes, the classic Siskel-Ebert graph…
Little Dreamer
@A Mom Anon:
It’s Risk on the Big Board. ;)
gnomedad
@El Cid:
Thanks for pointing that out. It’s trivially true that our bad past behavior doesn’t justify a regime’s current oppression of its people as if it’s “their turn”, but it sure as hell matters in terms of our credibility and moral authority. But in the neocon logic anything we do is good because it’s us doing it (“us” being Republican administrations aka Real Americans) and consequences be damned, as you note.
El Cid
@gnomedad: The entire approach is a dodge.
One doesn’t ask about the effects of our shitty overthrow of Iran’s elected government in order to ‘justify’ today’s authoritarians — but to point out the likely consequences of shitty policies said to be in ‘our’ interests.
The whole phrasing is that of the pure propagandist, which the Kraphammer is, who only wants to shift the discussion, such that anyone who disagrees with him is obviously just trying to ‘justify’ the clerics due to some minor and forgettable incidents some decades ago by heroic Americans merely trying to save the world from the Soviet menace.
Dan
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
You can’t really even say that much. At zero tax rate, certain government-like services would still be provided by roving thugs or non-profit groups, all of which require revenue or some economic equivalent. At 100% tax rate, there exists a similar outcome because people still have to eat. Confiscatory regimes like Soviet Russia highlight this case. In the middle, talking about revenue or service activity in terms of a single variable is ridiculous since the model is obviously multivariate. Anywhere on the curve, except the end-points where we sort of can imagine the behavior, the Laffer curve as a function of tax rate would properly be a big wad of spaghetti. The strongest true statement one could make about he Laffer curve is that the slope near the endpoints is probably right.
You’re completely right about the axes on the J-Curve though. Total ass pulling, there.
To the larger issue: people like using these curves because curves come from math, and math is hard and only done by smart people so if there’s a curve to go along with some utterly insane proposal it can’t actually be insane because somebody smart did some math on it, k? It helps that the electorate in general, and politicians in particular, are completely innumerate and easily fooled.
Brachiator
@Nellcote:
Win!
The J Curve is basically the Nike Swoosh with political commentary.
An additional reason why this faux-rational model is annoying is that it is presented as though it is describing some stable science experiment. The neo-con imagines himself to be some kind of godlike social scientist who takes a syringe and injects a pre-measured dose of “instability” into a petri dish in which an organism called “repressive regime” resides, and then sits back and observes the results over time.
The whole thing is both obnoxious and stupid.
This is the kicker. We have easily observable examples where instability (superpower meddling and other related activities) has led to a failed state, e.g., Somalia. There are other areas in which a nation oscillates between stability and stability, e.g. Lebanon. But there is no practical evidence that the J Curve in anything other than some idle bit of nonsense dreamed up during some dry academic conversation that was turned into a book idea.
As an aside, there is more than just neo-con madness at work here. There are journalists and political scientists who are both ignorant of — and intimidated — by math, science and statistics. And so rather than admit their ignorance, they praise stuff that appears to be rigorous and methodological, even if common sense suggests that the claims made are insubstantial and contradicted by reality.
geg6
Little Dreamer: Great minds and all. It’s funny because I was talking to one of our math professors about this very thing (neocons and wingnuts and their utter lack of any understanding of mathematical(whether statistical analysis or probability or just pick one more complex than 1+1) and scientific principles. And he finally said that they reminded him of adolescent males, especially in a group (but girls aren’t really all that different, IMHO). And that their real problem was one better addressed to one of our psych faculty.
anthony
These curves are really just graphic representations of homilies that conservatives like to use to replace reasoned arguments.
“Always darkest before the dawn”* probably sounded a bit too hokey so they put it on an XY axis.
*and this may be true but I’m not going to shut the power grid down at 5am
Mike G
Laffer pulled it out of his ass
Laffer’s curve was first sketched on Dick Cheney’s dinner napkin, thereby preserving Oily Dick’s record of involvement with every single disastrous and/or evil idea, policy and action of the US government in the past thirty years.
Little Dreamer
@geg6:
Actually girls ARE that different, we don’t spend our hours trying to see who’s fart will draw the largest flame from a blow torch.
We’re much more serious, although we also have fun. ;)
Malcontent
When looking at neoconservative doctrine this way, I finally understand how they can ally themselves with the rapture-ready folks. Neoconservatism is essentially a doomsday cult, why would they have a problem with joining with another cult if their philosophies do not pose significant conflict.
Zifnab
@Little Dreamer:
Girls lack curiosity and are unable to play well with others. Noted.
Little Dreamer
@Zifnab:
Not really, we spent our time together dressing plastic women with big tits, which is what boys end up doing in real life, as they grow older. ;)
We’re just ahead of the game and didn’t waste our time on all that fart nonsense.
KevinD
Too much profit in it.
Brachiator
@Little Dreamer:
Of course, some boys end up spending time undressing big women with plastic tits.
Just sayin’.
Chuck Butcher
@Little Dreamer:
Yes and labor under the delusion that yours don’t stink…
Little Dreamer
@Brachiator:
Well, to dress them, you have you UNDRESS them first.
;)
Little Dreamer
@Chuck Butcher:
We know all farts stink, even our own, that’s why we didn’t spend time on them. We just don’t acknowledge that in front of you guys. ;)
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
@Little Dreamer:
I hate to break up this fartfest, but …
this just stopped me in my tracks.
Is the old guy going senile on us?
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
@Brachiator:
Not me, I like them size-appropriate and all natural.
Little Dreamer
@PeopleAreNoDamnGood:
Which is why you like me? ;)
Little Dreamer
@PeopleAreNoDamnGood:
Yes, I read that a little while ago. Funny, eh?
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
@Little Dreamer:
Five thousand, six hundred and eighty three smiles.
Little Dreamer
@PeopleAreNoDamnGood:
That’s a lot of teeth. ;)
Grumpy Code Monkey
How many modern liberal democracies have resulted from destabilizing oppressive regimes? Can anyone point to an example? For bonus points, how many of those regimes were destabilized by outside forces (like, say, the CIA or something)?
One problem with the curve as presented (aside from the lack of a scale on either axis) is that it implies progress for a particular state, rather than serving as a snapshot of comparing many states’ relative stability vs. openness (for whatever values of “stability” and “openness”). Too many people fall into the “correlation is not necessarily causation” trap.
Which means they aren’t even interpreting the curve correctly; obviously, they should be promoting “openness” within the regime, which will induce the instability, instead of the other way around.
Ron
I don’t think it’s fair to lump all 3 curves together. Let’s take them one at a time. The “bell curve” is just the shape of the normal distribution. It is a very important function in basic statisics mostly because of the Central Limit Theorem.
The Laffer curve is something pulled out of someone’s ass, but at least has some basis in reality and the axes can measure something quantitative. It’s certainly true that revenue=0 when tax rates are 0 and revenue=0 when tax rates are 1.0. It’s probably reasonable to treat revenue vs rate as a continuous function so somewhere in the middle there is a maximum. Other than that though from what I can tell the rest is just made up crap.
The J curve is a joke. Neither openness nor stability are quantifiable in a meaningful way so the curve is just a way to look ‘smart’ doing something meaningless.
grendelkhan
Indeed. I’m surprised it took so long for anyone to point it out, but the “J” curve is indeed the damned shock doctrine. It’s “Utopia Justifies the Means”; it’s “creative destruction”; it’s the insane idea that if you destroy and keep on destroying, eventually you’ll be left with a perfect blank onto which you can inscribe the future. Nonsense, of course, and dangerous nonsense at that.
slippytoad
Neocons like things like the J curve and the Laughable Curve for one reason: confirmation bias.
Bias bias bias bias bias bias bias bias. The one word that conservatives and crybaby neocons have wrung from their harps for over two decades bias bias bias bias bias bias bias without undebiasstandingbias. They bias talked bias so much about bias but they bias didn’t biasedly biassimuss ever biassedly assbiassed underbiastand what the biasfuck the biasword was biased about.Any circumstance they could show where their unit-less “curve” could be applied in a vague, half-assed way, and show the results they wanted was CONFIRMATION ABSOLUTE PROOF DON’CHA KNOWIT???Thus, conservatives (who often are found claiming with a straight face that Presidents don’t have any influence on the economy) could write a book about how the Clinton-era economic boom was all the result of Reagan’s tax cuts because they think everyone’s as stupid as they are and will see only what they want us to see. Presented with a curve of real numbers based on actual events where a causative mechanism can actually be confirmed (i.e., carbon dioxide causing a greenhouse effect, and the rise in global temperatures being notably tied to a rise in greenhouse gas emissions), conservatives plug their ears and LALALALALALA.
It’s all about bias. And American conservatives have learned the art of extreme and shameless bias to the point that they now have to promote the actively STUPID within their ranks in order to continue selling the grotesque bias of their views as “common sense.” I think they started to learn this from Dan Quayle, who was catastrophically dim-witted but well liked by conservatives because he wasn’t a hideous wreck of an old man and was amiably dumb enough to say what conservatives needed said without showing intense pain on his face from the burning of teh stupid. The model progressed to George W. Bush, whose stupidity needs no introduction, and finally metastasized as the excrescence of Sarah Palin into the political punch bowl. Palin was the perfect Conservative Politician. Dumb as a fence post, attractive enough to soften the atrocity of her dim-bulb wit, and utterly convinced that she was perfectly entitled to be where she was.