Club Troppo

Fisking is ”the practice of savaging an argument and scattering the tattered remnants to the four corners of the internet (named after Robert Fisk of The Independent)” who was a victim. A verbal equivalent of the process was demonstrated last night by Christopher Monckton.

Perhaps the debate should move on to address the problem of extricating ourselves from the impending wave of wasteful and counterproductive regulation. And the question of how the warming lobby and Greens managed to inflate a possible temperature increase of a degree or two over the next century into the greatest moral challenge to humankind. And the way the increase in CO2 is described as pollution when it will tend to green the planet and increase our production of food. Etc.

Moderator (KP) – We do not exercise any pre-publication editorial control here at Troppo.  We trust our authors to exercise sound judgment in what they publish.  Rafe clearly has not exercised sound judgment here.  Troppo aims to publish thoughtful and even challenging articles which make a contribution to public policy debate and analysis.  In my view at least, Rafe’s post (and one or two others from him in recent times) is simply an exercise in regurgitating right wing slogans and makes no constructive contribution to public debate.  Mind you, some of the comments it has generated (e.g. JamesH at #20 and DD at #29) have been really interesting, so maybe there can be some value in occcasional blatant provocation!

I was initially minded simply to withdraw Rafe’s automatic authoring access at Troppo.  However, Rafe is a veteran blogger and almost an icon of the blogosphere.  At the very least he’s an amiable eccentric who doesn’t do any harm because no-one who reads Troppo is likely to take this sort of material remotely seriously anyway.  It may even give you an outlet for a bit of therapeutic spleen-venting!

Our current intention (although Nicholas Gruen isn’t presently in contact) is to leave this post up and continue Rafe’s authoring access but make it clear that we reserve the right to remove any future post that is as lacking in intellectual content as this one.  As Geoff Honnor observes in the comment box to this post, Troppo is an exception to the increasing tendency of the blogosphere to retreat into tribal cyber-enclosures and conduct conversations only with ideologically like-minded.  We want to publish opinion and analysis from diverse viewpoints, but it should be worth reading for its intellectual content not just its amateur shockjock qualities.

RC reply

The only hope for the future lies with civil discourse across party lines. As a centre-left blog I thought Troppo was in that business, like Catallaxy on the centre-nonleft. It this post is not regarded by the management as a reasonable contribution  to that dialogue I do not want to have posting rights on the site. I would not want to post on Lavertus for example. I may want to contribute comments however that is in the balance given the tone of rejoinders to this post.

The ALP will most likely crash and burn on the Green agenda, including the climate change strategies. People of good will of all parties will not rejoice at this spectacle

Which isn’t to complain.  He gives a great speech.

If anyone wants to come to an event put on by the Australian Business Foundation and Deloitte, on the new R&D Tax Credit – they can come along to an event in Melbourne this Friday. Details are below the fold. (Continued)

Since some episodes are good and others bad, I could never see the point of being either a declared friend or enemy of Q&A. But the bad have so thoroughly outnumbered the good this year that I’m about ready to concede it’s not worth watching. It hit rock bottom last night with what had been billed (at the end of last week’s show) as a discussion that tackles ‘the existence of God and the great moral challenges of our time.’

In fact, the panel didn’t debate the existence of God at all, apart from one set piece by John Lennox about the complementarity of science and religion. Lennox was the only intellect of substance on the panel. He’s an Oxford mathematician and Christian apologist, who’s debated many of the prominent atheists, including Dawkins, Hitchens, and Michael Shermer. In addition to his debating skills and knowledge, Lennox benefits from a happy combination of scholarly gravitas and disarming humility, the latter aided by a charming Irish brogue which is in winning contrast to the superior English accents of Dawkins and Hitchens. (Continued)

I don’t know much about this picture except that it seems to be begging to have a caption competition about it.  And here at Troppo, we’re never afraid of a challenge. Nothing is too serious to trivialise. So please supply us with a caption.  The winner of the comp will be flown to pick up the Troppo Mercedes Sports which has been garaged in Paris where it has been a stunt double in a movie about Princess Di.

A major component of the government’s clean energy plan is a package of assistance measures to compensate households for higher prices. The government will provide assistance through increases in pensions, allowances and family payments, as well as through income tax cuts. From a political and social perspective, the adequacy and credibility of this compensation will be of crucial importance.

(Continued)

At #76 on the Things Bogans Like list, McMansions are a symbol of the culture of overconsumption and a triumph of marketing over common sense. Built on the urban fringe, kilometers away from services and public transport, McMansion owners are doomed to spend hours in their cars. And with all that open plan space, these supersized houses are costly to heat and cool. Critics deride McMansion buyers as greedy, environmentally irresponsible and lacking in taste.

At Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony, Helen argues that McMansion buyers are being duped into buying substandard housing by developers and their slick, manipulative marketing campaigns. She argues that, if developers and their advertisers wanted to, they’d have no trouble convincing buyers that "they’d be happier and more comfortable (and richer!) in a smaller but better constructed and environmentally intelligent house." But is it really that simple?

(Continued)

. . . [T]here has been, I have to admit, an element of comic relief — of the black-humor variety — in the spectacle of so many people who have been in denial suddenly waking up and smelling the crazy.

A number of commentators seem shocked at how unreasonable Republicans are being. “Has the G.O.P. gone insane?” they ask.

Why, yes, it has. But this [is] the culmination of a process that’s been going on for decades. . . . And may I say to those suddenly agonizing over the mental health of one of our two major parties: People like you bear some responsibility for that party’s current state.

Let’s talk for a minute about what Republican leaders are rejecting.

President Obama has made it clear that he’s willing to sign on to a deficit-reduction deal that consists overwhelmingly of spending cuts, and includes draconian cuts in key social programs, up to and including a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility. These are extraordinary concessions. . . .

Yet Republicans are saying no. Indeed, they’re threatening to force a U.S. default, and create an economic crisis, unless they get a completely one-sided deal. And this was entirely predictable.

First of all, the modern G.O.P. fundamentally does not accept the legitimacy of a Democratic presidency — any Democratic presidency. We saw that under Bill Clinton, and we saw it again as soon as Mr. Obama took office.

As a result, Republicans are automatically against anything the president wants, even if they have supported similar proposals in the past. Mitt Romney’s health care plan became a tyrannical assault on American freedom when put in place by that man in the White House. And the same logic applies to the proposed debt deals.

. . . If a Republican president had managed to extract the kind of concessions on Medicare and Social Security that Mr. Obama is offering, it would have been considered a conservative triumph. But when those concessions come attached to minor increases in revenue, and more important, when they come from a Democratic president, the proposals become unacceptable plans to tax the life out of the U.S. economy.

Beyond that, voodoo economics has taken over the G.O.P.

[E]ven the administration of former President George W. Bush refrained from making extravagant claims about tax-cut magic, at least in part for fear that making such claims would raise questions about the administration’s seriousness.

Recently, however, all restraint has vanished — indeed, it has been driven out of the party. Last year Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, asserted that the Bush tax cuts actually increased revenue — a claim completely at odds with the evidence — and also declared that this was “the view of virtually every Republican on that subject.” And it’s true: even Mr. Romney, widely regarded as the most sensible of the contenders for the 2012 presidential nomination, has endorsed the view that tax cuts can actually reduce the deficit.

Which brings me to the culpability of those who are only now facing up to the G.O.P.’s craziness.

Here’s the point: those within the G.O.P. who had misgivings about the embrace of tax-cut fanaticism might have made a stronger stand if there had been any indication that such fanaticism came with a price, if outsiders had been willing to condemn those who took irresponsible positions.

But there has been no such price. Mr. Bush squandered the surplus of the late Clinton years, yet prominent pundits pretend that the two parties share equal blame for our debt problems. Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, proposed a supposed deficit-reduction plan that included huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, then received an award for fiscal responsibility.

So there has been no pressure on the G.O.P. to show any kind of responsibility, or even rationality — and sure enough, it has gone off the deep end.

If you’re surprised, that means that you were part of the problem.

Disclaimer: This ended up roughly 4500 words longer than I expected when I sat down.

A while ago, following the start of the Arab Spring, John Quiggin wrote a post declaring “Fukuyama, F*** Yeah“. Apart from showcasing an appreciation of both late 20th century political thought and early 21st century scatalogical humour, it also presents an interesting intellectual exercise, or at least diversion.

Let’s let Fukuyama restate his oft caricatured argument

“The End of History” is in the end an argument about modernization. What is initially universal is not the desire for liberal democracy but rather the desire to live in a modern — that is, technologically advanced and prosperous — society, which, if satisfied, tends to drive demands for political participation. Liberal democracy is one of the byproducts of this modernization process, something that becomes a universal aspiration only in the course of historical time.”

I’ll restate (or misrepresent) in my own terms with an emphasis on political legitimacy. The end of the cold war left Liberal Democracy, as defined by rule of law (encompassing impartiality, rights and government limited by law) and democratic accountability was the last standing Big Idea on the ideological battlefield. There are no other options to reach for to legitimise an existing or prospective regime. Even if not universal in practice, even in regimes that formally espoused it, this Big Idea’s lonely status is what represented an end of history in Kojèvian-Hegelian sense.

The game I want to play is to ask what a alternative Big Idea might look like. I should mention here that I don’t think this is a particularly useful or pertinent exercise. I would place it only slightly higher than asking “Would Batman beat x in a fight?”, and that’s only because a sensible person recognises that Batman always wins. Nonetheless… (Continued)

In this week’s Missing Link Friday: inequality, McMansions, education, brown coal and flaming kittens.

Inequality: Why don’t Australians complain more about wealth inequality? According to David Neal at The Conversation it’s because most of us underestimate how unequal the distribution really is.

McMansions: At Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony, Helen debates the merits of McMansions. Commenters Legal Eagle, Tigtog, lauredhel, DA Munroe and others add value.

Get a Tardis: At the Grattan Institute Oxford University VC Andrew Hamilton will talk about how to create a world class university. John Quiggin has an answer: "’found it in 1700, or preferably earlier".

Norton’s new job: After 11 years working for the Centre for Independent Studies and the University of Melbourne, Andrew Norton has a new job. Andrew is moving to the Grattan Institute to direct their new higher education program.

Privatising public education: At Larvatus Prodeo, Mercurius argues we’re well on our way to a privatised public education system. Such a system would allow ministers to "evade any notion of responsibility or accountability." Whenever something goes wrong, the minister "can simply re-assign the contract to a different provider, brave the cameras and assure the public that the system is working…"

Arts degrees: Is an arts degree a worthwhile investment in human capital? Andrew Norton is sceptical. He suspects the major benefits are "consumption and personal development."

Sceptical students: At In Socrates’ Wake, Michael Cholbi posts a reader’s question: How to deal with student moral skepticism in philosophy class. The comments thread includes references to flaming kittens, Nazis, and leaping from your BMW to steal food from a homeless person.

Brown out: “There appears to be lots of ‘doom and gloom’ around brown coal generation in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley under the carbon tax", writes Stephen King at Core Economics. However "It is far from obvious that this is justified – at least in the next few years."