The following article discusses the funeral protester First Amendment case that the Supreme Court is considering:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-funerals-20101007,0,7401118.story
I have a bad feeling that we are about to see an application of the legal maxim "Tough Cases Make Bad Law."
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Sorry for the delay, back to "Elitists"
I kind of lost my train of thought there, but my point is that, like "socialist", "Keynesian", or "liberal", "elitist" is applied to people in a derisive way. However, if you stop and think about what the term really means (in a non-extreme sense), it probably describes most people in most situations. Imagine that one of your family members is sick- would you take a poll of 100 people off the street and follow the advice of the majority? Or would you try to track down the most qualified doctor in the area (or maybe outside of it) and do what she suggests?
Maybe it makes me a horrible person, but I think that complex issues (for example, state-wide or national policy) are beyond the grasp of a lot of people. I don't know about you, but I'm offended by the ads I see on TV now. It frustrates me to know that some dipshit can be sitting around watching "The Vampire Diaries", hear some unsupported stat that "Electing Harry Reid for another term will mean that your children will have over $40k more in debt" (or that person could be walking around the Pinoy Festival, like I was last weekend, and hear the same thing from a volunteer), and decide that he will vote for whoever isn't Harry Reid. *Please note that I don't think that Sharron Angle saying that "it's not my responsibility to create jobs" is conclusive proof that a person shouldn't vote for her either, the attack on Harry Reid just sprung to my mind first.
Anyway, that's a meandering point, but I was trying to get to this: if someone is going to be influenced by an ad like that, his vote should be worth less than someone who has an understanding of how various policies are likely to play out. I understand that having that point of view makes me an elitist- Frankly, I think that if you don't think that way, you're retarded. (and yes, I understand that thinking this way means that the dumb would be underrepresented in the polls, and there's a danger that their interests won't be adequately represented. My response to that is "it's better than the dumb being overrepresented".)
Finally, back to your initial point, as to why the liberal elites (or elitists) insist on making fun of TEA Partiers. My guess is, like w/ Fox News, it's out of frustration more than anything, and it will be ineffective. In their eyes, TEA Partiers are a bunch of people who are treating a very broad issue (the general welfare of the country) in an absurdly narrow sense (we want to pay less in taxes). In most cases (one of our esteemed colleagues is an example of the absurd version of this), these people take one mostly (but not universally) correct assumption (that the invisible hand will yield an optimal result) and have made that the end of the analysis:
1. If everyone acts in a self-interested way, then everything will turn out for the best.
2. I want to pay less in taxes- I don't mind contributing to the military or the police, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay a cent for "x", because I personally won't ever benefit from "x".
As I have run into, trying to have a discussion with this person can get outrageously frustrating. Trying to have a discussion about whether educating a potential criminal might lead to less crime (and lead to less money being spent on police officers and jails), or something more subtle than that (like trying to quantify any other utility from such a policy decision, such as increased enjoyment that person might get from his life if he makes something of himself) goes nowhere- instead you keep coming back to the major principal that "if you keep taking from the rich, they'll leave the country" or "keep your hands off my money".
Maybe it makes me a horrible person, but I think that complex issues (for example, state-wide or national policy) are beyond the grasp of a lot of people. I don't know about you, but I'm offended by the ads I see on TV now. It frustrates me to know that some dipshit can be sitting around watching "The Vampire Diaries", hear some unsupported stat that "Electing Harry Reid for another term will mean that your children will have over $40k more in debt" (or that person could be walking around the Pinoy Festival, like I was last weekend, and hear the same thing from a volunteer), and decide that he will vote for whoever isn't Harry Reid. *Please note that I don't think that Sharron Angle saying that "it's not my responsibility to create jobs" is conclusive proof that a person shouldn't vote for her either, the attack on Harry Reid just sprung to my mind first.
Anyway, that's a meandering point, but I was trying to get to this: if someone is going to be influenced by an ad like that, his vote should be worth less than someone who has an understanding of how various policies are likely to play out. I understand that having that point of view makes me an elitist- Frankly, I think that if you don't think that way, you're retarded. (and yes, I understand that thinking this way means that the dumb would be underrepresented in the polls, and there's a danger that their interests won't be adequately represented. My response to that is "it's better than the dumb being overrepresented".)
Finally, back to your initial point, as to why the liberal elites (or elitists) insist on making fun of TEA Partiers. My guess is, like w/ Fox News, it's out of frustration more than anything, and it will be ineffective. In their eyes, TEA Partiers are a bunch of people who are treating a very broad issue (the general welfare of the country) in an absurdly narrow sense (we want to pay less in taxes). In most cases (one of our esteemed colleagues is an example of the absurd version of this), these people take one mostly (but not universally) correct assumption (that the invisible hand will yield an optimal result) and have made that the end of the analysis:
1. If everyone acts in a self-interested way, then everything will turn out for the best.
2. I want to pay less in taxes- I don't mind contributing to the military or the police, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay a cent for "x", because I personally won't ever benefit from "x".
As I have run into, trying to have a discussion with this person can get outrageously frustrating. Trying to have a discussion about whether educating a potential criminal might lead to less crime (and lead to less money being spent on police officers and jails), or something more subtle than that (like trying to quantify any other utility from such a policy decision, such as increased enjoyment that person might get from his life if he makes something of himself) goes nowhere- instead you keep coming back to the major principal that "if you keep taking from the rich, they'll leave the country" or "keep your hands off my money".
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