Policy analysis via ad hominem attack is best left to the RW.

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Mon Jan 2, 2012, 06:00 PM - Edit history (3)

Paul Krugman published a piece entitled "Keynes was Right." This is not unusual since Krugman sets great store in the Keynes approach to economics, like the value of government restoring employment in a down-turn and such.

The RW blog Powerline does not like Keynes. So the approach today is to attack the economic theories of Keynes (and Krugman) by higlighting an anti-semitic journal entry Keynes wrote when he was seventeen years old.

The mode of attack should be all too familiar to readers of General Discussion:

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Steven Hayward in Economy, Liberals, Media
Keynes Was Right–About the Jews?

So Paul Krugman phoned in his periodic “Keynes Was Right” column today, arguing that the Obama Porkulus failed only because, like “true” Communism, it wasn’t tried vigorously or faithfully enough. [font color=red]I wonder if Krugman also credits Keynes’s views on Jews[/font color], which British blogger Damian Thompson of The Telegraph brings to our attention.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/12/keynes-was-right-about-the-jews.php

See how that works? All liberal economics relies on Keynes. Keynes once said something bad. Hence we can dismiss all liberal economics. And now when Paul Krugman says that fiscal policy can reduce unemployment with good effects that idea can be countered with, "Why does Paul Krugman agree with an anti-semite?"

This is about as useful, in a serious discussion, as a creationist saying that Darwin beat his wife. (I don't think he did--that's just an example.)

It is a hopelessly stupid way to argue that treats the reader like a dunce but it is much easier than thinking. Easier for the writer and, sadly, often easier for the reader. It is anxiety-reducing to be given permission to dismiss complex ideas with the simpler logic of heroes and villains. Note that the powerline reader is being given permission, in the guise of virtue, to never rebut a word of Keynsian economics in economic terms.

PS: It is also foolhardy to fall into countering this tactic by minimizing the irelevant charge on its speciffic merit. That's the other side of the cycle of stupid. There would be no good reason to minimize anti-semitic ideas in general in order to defend Keynes as an economist. But that is the sort of thing folks do all the time... people and ideas are treated as interchangable. Bill Clinton cheated on his wife. There is no reason to maximize or minimize that sin as it relates to the wisdom of higher marginal tax rates because it does not relate to the wisdom of higher marginal tax rates.

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[cthulu2016]

4. Thanks

[FarLeftFist]

2. Yes, we NEED more gray area. TOO MUCH black or white. Sanity lives in the gray area.

[msongs]

3. irrrelevant really since the current administration does not believe in Krugman nt

[girl gone mad]

11. Or Keynes, for that matter.

[leveymg]

5. A lot of ad hominem attacks here of late, including invidious comparison of Krugman with Taibbi

I'm tired of the broad-brush tar flinging of a small group here who pose as Obama stalwarts. There have been literally dozens of posts in the last few days by these same individuals denouncing Tailbbi, Greenwald, and other Left critics of the Administration, and many of them use the same guilt by association McCarthyite tactics.

I am sick of it.

[cthulu2016]

6. A lot of bloggers and muck-raking journalists do go over the top

And that's no surprise. Their professional success depends on being noticed. Being extreme.

I do not litterlally and speciffically agree with a lot of individual sentences written by people seeking to stand out, even when I agree with much of what they have to say.

What grinds me is the notion that one is supposed to equate one man's mode of expression of an idea with the idea itself.

And, of course, the pure ad hominem stuff. The "see who you're agreeing with?" as if everyone is on the same page of credulous devotion to individuals, rather than the ideas themselves.

[leveymg]

8. I enjoy debate, and often learn from those I disagree with. But, personal attacks make my skin crawl

particularly when the attack is directed at third-parties who aren't there to defend themselves.

This puts the rest of us in the difficult position of having to censure the attacker and, sometimes, defend the targets, even when we don't really agree with them. There's a line of good sense, fairness and decorum that's being crossed here with increasing frequency.

[JackRiddler]

7. Wow, that was well-thought and well-written.

You may run into trouble communicating it to the worst offenders, however, who show little interest in classical standards of argument.

You might try this new headline: "This Ad Hominem guy is a Rethuglican asshat!!!"

[cthulu2016]

9. Yes, the practioners will remain unswayed

because it works.

I don't know what the ojective is—why polarization is desired. But it does reliably polarize.

[Edweird]

12. I believe the objective is to draw line after line in the sand.

"You're either with us or agin' us".
Each line is - by design - further right than the last one.
The plan, as I see it, is to make the Dem party indistinguishable from the republican party. Notice how 'pragmatism' looks an awful lot like Reaganism.

[zbdent]

10. I'm sure that "Girls are Icky" statements by any RW Republican candidate should

carry the same weight ... despite the fact that they were written or stated by the candidate back decades ago (and when they were young).

[Solly Mack]

13. K&R

[Bluenorthwest]

14. Such a well written piece, and so accurate

Kick

[cthulu2016]

16. Thank you!

[whatchamacallit]

15. You'd think this would be obvious to any rational adult...

Fear and loathing of Obama-critical pundits is causing mass regression on DU.

[Nye Bevan]

17. Hitler had a mustache. That's why Tom Selleck sickens me (nt)