All because you don't believe in your pragmatic, scientific, data-based betters.
The divide between the empiricists and the believers is also the fault line between the highly educated, technologically adept super-elite and the squeezed and scared middle class. But those hoi polloi voters, who, in 2012, as they were in 2008, seem to be drawn to politicians with big ideas and strong beliefs, may also be responding to something even bigger than this cognitive divide.
Same old elitist crap.
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8 comments:
Robert, in your hunt for an offensive quote, you miss a crucial point. Read the final paragraph again.
@wally: Walt, I get tired of hearing that word "unprecedented." To me it represents lazy journalism. I'd be willing to bet there's lots of precedents in 200+ years of US history, if the writers weren't too lazy to do some basic research.
That's kind of a nit-pick, isn't it? And unrelated to the point of the sentence.
@wqally: Actually, no. The "unprecedented" and "uncharted waters" connect directly. If the economic situation were truly unprecedented, you might indeed be said to be sailing in uncharted waters. But, for the reasons I give above, I doubt it. I just think the writer is unwilling to spend time researching such things as the US Bank crisis during the Jackson administration, the Panic of 1873, or the Great Depression, not to mention lesser economic crises.
I don't think that by her use of "unprecedented" the writer meant to imply that there's never been a recession before, Robert. I think it's clear that she means the combination of factors at work in the present moment, two of which she proceeds to name, which set today's situation apart from the Panic of 1873 et al. I think yall's differing use of "unprecedented" in this context is more an issue of opinion, rather than lack of research. At any rate, unprecedented or not, she seems to be saying that the Obama economists' reliance on data, while useful, is not sufficient for charting a course out of this situation. Would you disagree with that?
@wally: It might be a case of mixing metaphors, but if you read this post of mine, you'll realize that I'm among those who believe that Obama plays for the other team and is sailing the ship in the direction that they dictate, never mind that it's a lee shore with shoals everywhere.
More and more people are coming to the conclusion that the US will remain divided until either the Left or the Right is defeated in the war of ideas, and the US turns into either a social welfare state on the European model, or remains the free market powerhouse that made it great.
While I would, unsurprisingly, disagree with your characterization of the two directions--the limitations of the "free market" have been clearly demonstrated, to some of us at least--you're right that it has come to a war between two distinct ideologies. While that may appeal to you, in my mind it goes against the idea of consensus that our government was founded on.
@wally: In a strange coincidence, there is an article in today's Wall Street Journal discussing that very subject, by a Nobel Prize-winning economist NOT named Paul Krugman.
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