Monday, January 10, 2011

Krugman's Column on Arizona

Krugman's column is, of course, self-recommending - but this one was even better than I had expected it to be. A couple things I liked:

1. He came out loud and clear that Loughner was obviously mentally disturbed.

2. He distinguished between rhetoric that is heated and insulting, which he sees as part of a democracy and apparent on both sides, and rhetoric that is "eliminationist". I'm not sure I'd put it exactly that way - that puts a quite narrow cordon around an especially bad brand of rhetoric when I think there are other harmful types of rhetoric as well. But I do like the fact that he makes a distinction. There's something very different about Tea Party rhetoric, and Krugman starts to hit on what that is.

3. He doesn't mention the "Tea Party" once. I found that interesting and I'm not sure why it is. I really see the Tea Party as the primary problem and the Republican Party simply as being opportunistic - and I think there's a big difference between the Tea Party perspective and the libertarian perspective for that matter too. I've maintained for months now that the Tea Party is not a libertarian movement. Anyway, I'm not exactly sure why he does it.

Some selections:

"It’s true that the shooter in Arizona appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate.

Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent. A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness — but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence.

And there’s not much question what has changed. As Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff responsible for dealing with the Arizona shootings, put it, it’s “the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business.” The vast majority of those who listen to that toxic rhetoric stop short of actual violence, but some, inevitably, cross that line.

It’s important to be clear here about the nature of our sickness. It’s not a general lack of “civility,” the favorite term of pundits who want to wish away fundamental policy disagreements. Politeness may be a virtue, but there’s a big difference between bad manners and calls, explicit or implicit, for violence; insults aren’t the same as incitement.

The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary...

...Where’s that toxic rhetoric coming from? Let’s not make a false pretense of balance: it’s coming, overwhelmingly, from the right. It’s hard to imagine a Democratic member of Congress urging constituents to be “armed and dangerous” without being ostracized; but Representative Michele Bachmann, who did just that, is a rising star in the G.O.P.

And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will."

24 comments:

  1. I find it interesting that Olbermann is played down a little here by Krugman. See, several months ago, when I was a regular on a particular forum, I remember a discussion on a certain Scott Brown by a Massachussets native being quite active. Out of idle curiosity, I had also searched some info on him back then.

    Scott Brown's two daughters, who were still in high school, were called prostitutes by one woman talking head. And Olbermann called the man a racist, homophobic, reactionary who advocates violence against women and his enemies. After all this slander, neither apologized. Imagine that you are a daughter of this Brown, and you go to school and find male classmates calling you a hooker because TV persons called you one and hearing everybody talk about how your father is supposedly a racist and a homophobe. And considering she is a girl, imagine that your father is being called misogynistic, even though he loves you as his daughter.

    Krugman is right to not aim for false equivalence. But you have MSNC anchors cruelly dehumanizing and disparaging people, and using a public platform to deride even the innocent relatives of politicians. This same level of dehumanization is being done by Krugman who accuses political opponents of egging on violent, mentally disturbed people, and refers to them as "crazies" in his blog.

    And unlike this mentally disturbed Arizona shooter, Messrs. Krugman and Olbermann know exactly what they are doing.

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  2. This is the real perspective we should be having: http://reason.com/blog/2011/01/09/violence-government-violence-a

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  3. Xenophon - I agree on the problems with the drug war, but I'm struggling to understand if this is suppoesd to have something to do with the post. Is there a connection?

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  4. The point is that there are some pretty good reasons to engage in anti-government rhetoric and that an isolated shooting like this is no reason to stop from engaging in such.

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  5. Right... well I'm not sure anyone is saying stop anti-government rhetoric. That would be fairly anti-thetical to what America has always been all about.

    I think the concern is what Krugman calls "eliminationist" rhetoric. Reason.com offers a great example of how to be anti-government without being "eliminationist".

    I think there's another story, and that's the distortion of the Constitution, of economics, etc. that gets fed to Tea Partiers. The revisionism on these issues provides a motivation for acting on the violence-inducing rhetoric. It's a somewhat different argument, of course, because reasonable minds can disagree on some of these issues. But the point is when you tell an impressionable mind it is being oppressed and stolen from and then you tell that same person to use violence, you're going to get things like this.

    None of this in any way implicates anti-government rhetoric in general.

    And if you look at what has been denounced, it's the violent rhetoric, not the anti-government rhetoric.

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  6. "I really see the Tea Party as the primary problem..."

    The "primary" problem for what?

    We currently have a government engaged in multiple wars, with military bases covering the globe, with spending far outpacing need, and with politicians far more corrupt and dim-witted than aristocratic.

    If there is a movement, populist if need be, trying to finally curtail government power, then I support it. I simply don't believe grassroots resistance is a new phenomenon, nor do I believe it has ever been solely populated by noble-spirited intellectuals. The Tea Party isn't Platonically pure; it's not without contradictions. But it is the most vocal opponent to government excess we have.

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  7. strangeloop -
    Sorry, I thought that was clear from context. The Tea Party is the primary problem with these violent outbursts and threats. Not libertarianism (a lot of the time when I criticize the Tea Party people wrongly think I'm critiquing libertarianism), and not the Republican Party (which was why I thought it was so strange Krugman only mentioned the GOP and not the Tea Party).

    Certainly there are loads of other problems we face, many of which you mention.

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  8. And how come all the G12, globalization, tuition, etc. riots are never pinned on Keith Olbermann?

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  9. Perhaps I'm missing something... is there some reason to pin it on him?

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  10. No, and as far as I can tell, there's no reason to pin Jared Loughner's actions on the Tea Party.

    Of course, very rarely would I pin any individual's actions on a peacefully-assembling, protesting movement. The Tea Party has, so far, never been even nearly as violent as contemporary leftist movements. No smashed windows or overturned cars (so far).

    I mean, I just don't hear the same criticisms of violent student protests over tuition, for instance. Both the Left and the Right have aggressive nutjobs. And both the Left and Right have cable-news blowhards pushing the extremes further.

    But, I still don't see these phenomena as the root, or "primary problem." That, for me, is the boundless power of government action, where Constitutionality is less important than oversized gavels.

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  11. The Tea Party has been associated with violent rhetoric against Democrats in general and Gifford in particular. Loughner has expressed ideas that strongly suggest he's been influenced by the Tea Party? Can we be serious for a moment and just acknowledge that? The claim is not that Loughner's actions should be "pinned on the Tea Party". See my update to my earlier post - if you can't make the distinction I'd appreciate if you take your comments elsewhere. I can't spend all my time reassuring hyper-sensitive Tea Partiers.

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  12. One more thing: I've been too busy to read blogs lately, and I want to simply thank you for your continuing presence. Your liberal (I mean that in the nicest sense) perspective is a nice alternative to my own thinking, and it's fun to read.

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  13. Thanks - I appreciate it. It's a tough balance but I'm glad I've been able to keep it up.

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  14. I'm not sure I could be characterized as a "hyper-sensitive Tea Partier," since I have never affiliated with any Tea Partier or event.

    I think linking his ideas to an "influence" by the Tea Party is wholly speculative and without much grounding. It could be true, but I simply don't see it, yet. His friends described him as a leftist, not a conservative/liberatian/Tea Partier.

    Furthermore, I still don't see how advocates of the gold standard, etc. immediately propel one to commit violent acts.

    Frankly, I think your connection between the two is more ideological than factual.

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  15. My position has always been that it is his mental state that propelled him to the crime.

    Maybe this is the way to phrase it: this kid had a high likelihood of doing something like this. The Tea Party gave him an extremely explicit outlet. To repeat - I do not place "blame" on the Tea Party. I do think they have done things wrong. I do not place blame for this incident on them, but I also don't think they're irrelevant to it.

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  16. Calling something the "primary problem" for this and then clarifying that by explicitly stating that the "Tea Party is the primary problem with these violent outbursts and threats" seems to shift blame in that direction.

    What I've noticed in many recent discussions here and elsewhere is a sort of doublethink: "I'm not blaming the Tea Party, but look how much the Tea Party is to blame!"

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  17. I have no idea how else to say this, strangeloop. That's why I took pains to highlight the distinction earlier.

    It seems like you can't even mention the Tea Party without them worrying that you're attributing the attack to them. If there's anything the Tea Party has done that might be ill-advised they worry you're blaming the whole thing on them. They give you two options - accuse them of everything or don't even mention them. I don't buy either of those options and I feel like I've been saying that clearly. Not sure how else to do it, strangeloop.

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  18. http://reason.com/blog/2011/01/10/the-instant-politicization-of

    If there's reason to blame or even mention them, then go for it. As the data stands, there isn't.

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  19. Every claim made about this guy is on the basis of a perception about his political philosophy, what motivated him, and so forth.
    That you immediately jump to such a narrow interpretation - with little information - brings into question how objectively you're really seeing things.

    Would it be that far-fetched to believe that what motivated this guy was that the congresswoman was not "left" or "liberal" enough? That perhaps he thought she was not fit to call herself a Democrat? And if this were so, would it then not make sense to say that he has, in some way, been "enabled" by the extreme elements of the left (following your reasoning).

    And even if he did not do it for that reason; in general, why should we interpret the "enabling" ideology as deriving from the right?

    In any case, this interpretation may or may not be true. But what's so telling about this whole thing is how quickly you perceive things in a certain way on the basis of so little information. It doesn't seem that an alternative possibility has even crossed your mind.

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  20. EdP -
    You're entirely misreading my - I said first and foremost his mental health is the cause of this.

    But this blog isn't about mental health. It's about economics, current events, history, politics, ideology, and society. And I'll weigh in on those issues and the social context in which this killing arose. To say that I "immediately jump to such a narrow interpretation" is patently absurd.

    re: And if this were so, would it then not make sense to say that he has, in some way, been "enabled" by the extreme elements of the left (following your reasoning).

    Explain to me what "exteme elements of the left" you have in mind - I'm more than happy to entertain these prospects.

    re: It doesn't seem that an alternative possibility has even crossed your mind.

    And it doesn't seem that you've taken any time to understand my perspective.

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  21. "You're entirely misreading my - I said first and foremost his mental health is the cause of this."

    Please read my post carefully. Did I dispute this - that the primary cause is mental illness? My post only deals with your secondary commentary - the more general ideas and motivating culture that may have had some effect on this guy.

    "To say that I "immediately jump to such a narrow interpretation" is patently absurd."

    How so? Have you entertained any other conclusion of which I am unaware?

    "Explain to me what "exteme elements of the left" you have in mind - I'm more than happy to entertain these prospects."

    There is no particular label for the group I refer too. But, for example, I would point to those who support an ideology promoted by the "The Daily Kos" (modern day "Progressives" perhaps?). It was recently pointed out here:

    http://www.examiner.com/post-partisan-in-national/liberal-website-daily-kos-put-bullseye-on-dead-to-me-giffords

    that in 2008 a bulls eye was place on Giffords. And just prior to the assassination an attacking article was written in which the author proclaimed Giffords as "dead to me". This is pretty harsh and "violent" language, no?

    "And it doesn't seem that you've taken any time to understand my perspective."

    I'm very aware of the fact that you've repeatedly re-affirmed that mental illness was the primary cause. But that has nothing to do with whether an interpretation of the ideas correlated to an event is narrow-minded or not. My comment is with reference to that interpretation - not with what is the "ultimate" or primary cause of him doing it. Please be careful when ready MY posts.

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  22. re: "Please read my post carefully. Did I dispute this - that the primary cause is mental illness?"

    EdP, you can't tell me that:

    1. "every claim" is about his politics
    2. I "immediately" jump on these political motivations, and
    3. that that is my "narrow" view

    And then turn around and complain when I accuse you of ignoring what my primary explanation was. If you truly recognize that to be my primary explanation, you wouldn't have said that "every" claim was about his politics, or that I "immediately" or "narrowly" jumped on the politics. You would have said "one of" the claims was about politics, that it was "secondary" (not immediate), and that my view was not "narrow". So please, don't come to me after the fact and tell me I'm not reading you closely.

    re: How so? Have you entertained any other conclusion of which I am unaware?

    That he was mentally unwell for one thing. That seems like a fairly major conclusion to me.

    I'll take the first bullseye as being quite comparable to Sarah Palin's ads. The "dead to me" line isn't, though. That's a phrase that specifically means "you are not literally dead by I dismiss you as if you were". It's not an incitement of violence, in that sense.

    OK - so there's this Daily Kos thing. I would say the lack of a pattern and a broad array of other examples, the lack of a conspiratorial approach to these congressmen, and the lack of any apparent affinity between Loughner and the ideas of liberal Democrats makes me discount this, at least as an explanation for Loughner.

    Do I think Daily Kos oughta express things differently? Sure - I think that all the time.

    You'll understand why incidences like this concern me less when there are no leftist militia groups, no conspiracies about socialist governments, no media personalities calling for secession, armed revolution, or hypothesizing civil war on a regular basis.

    In other words, sure - I am happy to condemn this case by Daily Kos and others that show up. But if you want to make the additional argument that there is a meaningful pattern you'll have a much harder time convincing me.

    Savvy?

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  23. Your admiration for Krugman is mystifying. What is there to recommend about this? Do you really not see the hypocrisy of castigating people for 'toxic rhetoric' whilst simultaneously accusing them of playing a causal role in violence without bothering to offer a shred of proof that they actually are?

    The reason he doesn't cite the tea party is obvious. The tea party is a relatively recent phenomenon and will probably fizzle out before too long. His reference to the Clinton era and McVeigh makes it clear that he is trying to portray the fomenting of violence as just something the republican party does.

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  24. tequila.

    Daniel suffers from krugmania.

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