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WE'VE MOVED!
Posted: Thu, 15 Apr 2010 13:25:00 +0000
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Legal Challenges to Health Insurance Reform
Posted: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:16:00 +0000
The prospects for success in the courts are certainly slim and the plaintiff's are surely as motivated by electoral politics as by concern for constitutional integrity, but on the whole I think these lawsuits serve a valid and valuable educational function.
As a civics educator the past year watching the tortured path of health insurance reform has been fantastic for students of government and politics. Real time legislative maneuvering beats textbooks and case studies every time. The next chapter in this real life saga will be judicial and will do doubt enliven and illuminate my efforts to demonstrate both the importance of seemingly arcane rules and procedures and to show the vital connections between aspects of government and policy making that students too often consider in isolation.
I would encourage supporters of the several legal challenges to tout the educational value of their efforts along with their political arguments. That would give them at least one uncontroversial motive. -
The Tortoise and the Hare
Posted: Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:57:00 +0000
Do you remember the book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? I think the Obama Administration may have been counting on the lesson of The Tortoise and the Hare over the last 13 months or so. The question now may be whether the Republicans still need some extra help after class. -
Principles and Consequences
Posted: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:12:00 +0000
Recently Stanley Fish wrote a column on the Supreme Court decision in F.E.C. v. United Citizens . In it he explained very clearly the difference in the arguments of the Court's liberal minority and conservative majority. The conservative majority, Fish explained, made a "principled" argument, while the liberals relied on a "consequentialist" approach. These two approaches are often present in left/right debates in the political arena as well. Health insurance reform provides a clear example of a debate between left and right to which the principled-consequentialist theoretical framework can be applied productively to sort through the complexity, confusion, and intensity of the clashing rhetoric.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Is the Right right?
Posted: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:37:00 +0000
The intensity and venom coming from conservative opponents of health insurance reform is so great that we simply must examine the conservative argument to find out how so many folks could be so adamant and resistant to compromise.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
The Dangers of Profitable Rage
Posted: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 12:40:00 +0000
The rhetoric that has dominated the year long effort to stop health care reform has ranged from ridiculous to very frightening. The "Tea Partiers" who yelled obscenities and spit on Members of Congress who support health care reform yesterday, reportedly calling several black Congressmen "niggers," ought to scare every reasonable American. The striking contrast between a legislative debate that is truly moderate over a bill filled with formerly Republican proposals, and the hyperbolic rhetoric of opponents is surreal. The bill is far from the comprehensive reform sought by progressives.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Political Argument versus Political Antagonism
Posted: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:31:00 +0000
This week, I will be trying to put together a whole lot of research, past writings, and new data for a conference paper/ presentation next month on civic knowledge, civility, and partisanship. My fascination with the intersection of personal opinions, styles of intercommunication, and political partisanship is stoked daily by the constant fixation of 24/7 radio & TV with "politics" programming, as well as the seemingly massive "new" media infrastructure built around political research and/or activism. I have regularly monitored and participated in political debate on the internet, both in my own social networks (like facebook) and in various interactive internet formats. The free three-month subscription to satellite radio that accompanied my recently purchased new car has pushed me even further into this strange world of hyper-politics.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Extremism and Lazy Thinking
Posted: Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:54:00 +0000
Political extremism may not be a vice “in the defense of liberty,” but in most cases it is both cause and consequence of lazy thinking. Even brilliant ideologues, whose conclusions have been honed by a lifetime of scholarship and experience, often come to a place where the scholarly imperative of regularly questioning assumptions (however long held) is logistically impractical, if not impossible, in routine discourse. In fact, the reification of long held principles is probably inescapable given the limitations of human rationality.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Breaking News- "Ideas Matter" Blog is now accepting Reader comments!
Posted: Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:47:00 +0000
From now on the millions of faithful "Ideas Matter" readers can contribute directly to the blog with comments, questions, and insights of their own. -
Earmarks: good process, bad politics?
Posted: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:15:00 +0000
Are all "earmarks" corrupt? A recent New York Times article describes the House Democrats' plan to end "earmarks" to particular companies (i.e. no bid contracts). The article says that Republicans are calling for the end of "ALL" earmarks. Are they trying to seem more anti-corruption? Are they trying to stop earmarks that liberals are more likely to seek? Or, are they hoping to save some corporate earmarks by threatening non-corporate earmarks? My initial sense is that all three of these motives are afoot among both the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress on this issue.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Hand holding or arm wrestling?
Posted: Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:34:00 +0000
President Obama was elected on an inspiring message of hope and change. The content of these wonderful things was left to the eye of the beholder. That’s how it’s done, and Obama did it very well. In his first year in office he has indeed changed things. He has steered a very moderate policy course and tried very hard to exemplify what he calls “post partisanship.” He has tried to live up to a rhetorical claim that everyone makes but no one seriously tries to fulfill, namely putting partisanship aside and trying to solve big problems by consensus. This was both a political and a policy mistake! He thought that the American people really did want bipartisan cooperation and compromised policy responses to serious problems, something Americans only claim when confronted with the false choice of gridlock or unprincipled compromise.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Civility versus Substance?
Posted: Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:40:00 +0000
In a recent Washington Post op-ed UVA professor Garard Alexander asks; Why are liberals so condescending? His complaints about liberal intellectual condescension were not unreasonable. In fact, as a liberal who tries to avoid intellectual incompetence and condescension in public dialogue [ironically efforts to avoid of one sometimes lead to the other], I found myself nodding in agreement with much of Alexander's claims. The problem is that after reading the column one is left with what seems to liberals like a plausible answer to his query - because conservatives are stupid. Sadly, Alexander presents no argument or evidence to the contrary.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Longmeadow ain't what it used to be
Posted: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:54:00 +0000
Longmeadow became an upscale community with an exceptionally high quality of life because of its residents’ shared values, among them shared (participatory) governance and shared interests (economic and otherwise). The notion of “commonwealth” was deeply engrained in the people, institutions, and ethos of this place. The persistence of our participatory form of government (Town Meeting) serves as an institutional reminder of the Tocquevillian notions of citizenship and community that survived largely unchallenged in Longmeadow until at least the early 1980s.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Taking Stock in the Aftermath of Defeat
Posted: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:25:00 +0000
All political debates whether in elections or in governance are translated by the participants into an “us” versus “them” contest. The trick is to make the “us” bigger than the “them.” Even though a lot of college kids take poli sci to avoid math, the reality is that politics in a democracy is really about division and that is as it should be. The only time everyone in a democracy should be united is when everybody in a democracy has the very same interests and principles at stake. In other words, total unity in a democracy is only reasonable in the face of a real existential threat, or on questions with little or nothing at stake (i.e. should we go to war, or should we designate January “neuter your pet” month?). The rest of the time, which is most of the time, calls for national unity are at best an unintentional affront to the principles of individual rights and popular sovereignty.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
The "Scott" Heard Round the World
Posted: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:40:00 +0000
It’s January 20, 2010, one year to the day after Americans made history by electing Democrat Barack Obama President of the United States and just 17 hours (or so) after Massachusetts voters sent a very surprising and stern warning to President Obama by electing Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate seat occupied by liberal icon Ted Kennedy for more than four decades. I went to bed last night as a sad Democrat. I woke up this morning, still a sad Democrat. As I made the 40 minute commute to the office this morning I slowly went from just a sad Democrat to a sad Democrat and a very exited political science professor, who by a wonderful coincidence is teaching a course on American public opinion this semester.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Public Opinion Reality Check
Posted: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:15:00 +0000
Public opinion polls are only useful if read properly. The claims about Americans turning away from the Democratic healthcare reform bills are perfectly accurate, as far as I can tell. It is clearly true that many Americans who once supported the President on Healthcare reform are now unhappy about his approach.
Unfortunately for the opponents of reform, some of these same polls reveal that there is as much (or more) dissatisfaction with the present state of the reform legislation on the left as on the right. This means that the American public remains solidly in favor of liberal health care reform by a 2 to 1 margin, according to the latest CBS News Poll. The problem with media analysis of polls on healthcare reform is that it often doesn't clearly distinguish between those who oppose the present reform from the left and those who oppose it from the right, which creates a false positive of sorts for conservative opponents to reform.
The latest CBS Poll does make this distinction clear in the data, but not in the accompanying CBS news analysis, which is deceptively (but provocatively) titled "Obama Healthcare Marks Hit New Low." In fact, this accompanying analysis describes Americans as "divided" on whether the present reform package goes too far or not far enough. While technically accurate, this interpretation masks the reality that the percentage of respondents who said the reforms are either just right or don't go far enough in regulating the health insurance industry is 61% compared to just 27% who oppose it from the right (i.e. believing that reforms go too far). That's more than a two to one advantage for at least the weaker Senate bill.
The White House's apparently lack luster defense of the most liberal elements of the healthcare reform package may indicate that the Administration reads polls properly and understands that despite the headlines to the contrary, a solid majority of Americans support liberal healthcare reform. After more than six months of relentless attacks and millions of anti-reform dollars spent on turning Americans against liberal reform, the data that is apparently too complicated for the mass media to report reveals a much more accurate picture of what Americans think about healthcare reform. -
Public Opinion; When does it matter?
Posted: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:32:00 +0000
The standing of American presidents in the polls has long been an every-day story in the national press. As the numbers creep up or down hand wringing about the loss or gain of influence fills the op-ed pages and the cable news airwaves. That a president's approval ratings impact his capacity to lead is clear, the nature and degree of this impact, however, is not. President George W. Bush recorded many of his policy victories while his poll numbers were subterranean, and President Obama's approach to his policy agenda seems anything but responsive to the polls. What's going on here? What has changed that would reduce the need for president's to jealously guard their public approval numbers?
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
The Intentions of the Founders
Posted: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:53:00 +0000
I recently heard Glenn Beck praising the recent uptick in popular interest in the political thought of America's founding generation of statesmen, marking one of the few times I agreed with him. Increased interest in understanding the ideas, motivations, and arguments of the men who designed our constitutional system is a very good thing, though I'm not sure it will work out very well for the Glenn Beck's of the world.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Mediscare: Republican Style
Posted: Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:05:00 +0000
When the Newt Gingrich led Republican Congress of 1995 tried to slow the growth of Medicare payments, the Democrats employed hyperbolic scare tactics in an effort to prevent the reduction in growth to Medicare. Today, Senate Republicans are doing the same thing on the healthcare reform bill when they say over and over and over that the bill will "raid" Medicare and "cut benefits to seniors" and even "kill grandma." Republican Senators McCain and Alexander relished the opportunity to use the Democrats' opposition to cuts in growth in 1995 in their own attempt to prevent the cuts in growth that are part of the present Democratic healthcare reform bill. Every politician loves the opportunity to use the words of opponents against them.
Click HERE for the rest of the story -
Democrats Must Choose Kennedy Successor
Posted: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:02:00 +0000
The choice of Democratic primary voters in a special election to fill Kennedy’s seat should be easy. Although all of the candidates are good and accomplished people, Congressman Capuano IS ALREADY ON THE JOB. There is absolutely no mystery about his legislative record, skills, or prowess. Despite their impressive credentials, none of the others has even one day of legislative experience and their campaigns show it.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Health Care Reform
Posted: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:02:00 +0000
The political debate over healthcare reform in the United States has been extremely heated despite the reality that the actual policy debate is rather tame, even boring. Constitutional, public policy, and healthcare policy experts are NOT really divided on the relevant legal and policy questions. The controversy and conflict over healthcare policy has been introduced and maintained by those with narrow economic and/or rigid ideological interests.
Click HERE for the rest of the story. -
Who's up? Who's down?
Posted: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:26:00 +0000
The following New York Times op-ed columns represent the Republican and Democratic Parties interpretations of the 2009 elections. These are not skewed views of the present reality. They are sincere, but different, perspectives on the present political “mood” offered as opening arguments in each party’s case to the 2010 electorate.
I see the impact of off-year elections as primarily rhetorical and motivational. In my opinion, off-year results simply provide fodder for particular rhetorical arguments, and don’t represent the direction of voters’ actual policy preferences. They also serve to energize the base from which the 2010 election ground troops will come. If the spin is positive, it is used as momentum to generate confidence and enthusiasm among base supporters (especially for the out party). If a positive spin is impossible, then the base needs to be reassured and motivated to prepare for a tough, but all important, fight to come.
As for potentially persuadable 2010 voters, surveys eliciting substantive policy preferences do not presently show any significant shift in policy preferences. Nevertheless, both parties will, quite understandably interpret off year elections (publicly at least) either as showing increasing support for their policy perspectives, or at least do not show retreat from their policy perspectives.
Finally, an Authentic G.O.P., by Alex Castellanos
Relax, Democrats , by Ruy Teixeira -
Tenacity v. Intelligence?
Posted: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:47:00 +0000
The following passage is from today's David Brooks column in the New York Times:They [military experts] do not know if he [President Obama] possesses the trait that is more important than intellectual sophistication and, in fact, stands in tension with it. They do not know if he possesses tenacity, the ability to fixate on a simple conviction and grip it, viscerally and unflinchingly, through complexity and confusion. They do not know if he possesses the obstinacy that guided Lincoln and Churchill, and which must guide all war presidents to some degree.
David Brooks is a very talented columnist whose work is almost always cerebral and serious, which makes this column even more troubling. Does Brooks really think that "tenacity" is "in tension" with "intellectual sophistication?" Does he really see Presidents Bush and Obama as "war presidents" in the same way that Lincoln and Churchill were leaders of nations at war? Are we to believe that the American Civil War and World War II, wars that threatened the very existence of the nations led by Lincoln and Churchill, are even remotely analogous to present conflicts?
Lincoln and Churchill represent intellectual sophistication in the face of an imminent existential threat. Maybe President Kennedy's efforts during the Cuban missile crisis could be included in this category? The present situation, however, is not an imminent existential threat and the idea that Churchillian tenacity is required is what motivated President George W. Bush.
Need I say more? -
Three kinds of Truth
Posted: Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:11:00 +0000
The pursuit of THE TRUTH, A TRUTH, and TRUTH are the sine qua non of religion, politics, and philosophy, respectively. They are the ends that justify the means of pastors, politicians, and professors. The will and wisdom to see, understand, and respect the differences between these varieties of truth may be a good starting place in the effort to elivate our human conversation, which is too often beset by the failure (intentional and unintentional) to distinguish between truth premises. -
X + Facts = A Reasonable Claim
Posted: Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:04:00 +0000
Solve for X. I have always encountered resistance to theoretical discussion and debate, both in the classroom and in the public square. Students and politicians fear it, voters have no patience for it, and reporters and pundits can't sell it. Americans expect anyone with a valid argument to simply "cut to the chase," and to "let the facts speak for themselves." Efforts to interpret facts contextually (i.e. the only intellectually honest way to do it) are assumed to be efforts to manipulate facts for personal gain, which is itself assumed to be contrary to the public interest. In other words, a healthy scepticism has been replaced by a very unhealthy cynicism, which actually works very well for those who really are trying to "fool some of the people some of the time."
Click HERE for the rest of the story.
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