Lately it has become fashionable among political pundits to declare that the US Presidential election has devolved into a negative slug fest in which both Obama and Romney are equally culpable, lying and distorting and refusing to accept fundamental realities. This is a sort of professional centrism–taking it as an article of faith that both sides are equally to blame. The trouble is that this centrism doesn’t reflect reality and consequently, in order to maintain it, these “centrists” have resorted accepting blatantly false claims from the American political right. Chief among these is the claim that “Medicare is going bust” and that Paul Ryan’s proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher system is some kind of bold, serious solution. Today I set out to examine and refute that claim.
Tag: UK
Job Creators or Leisure Class?
A lot of people on the right have been exalting the virtues of “job creators”, agitating for policy changes like the lowering of taxes on the wealthy, the relaxing of regulations, and the augmentation of corporate subsidies so as to facilitate their special talents. Today I would like to juxtapose this view with that of Thorstein Veblen’s notion of the leisure class.
Republicans, The Germans, and Creditor Ethics
The republicans and the Germans have a lot in common right now. Ordinarily, comparing an American political party to the industrious Germans would be quite the positive thing, but right now the republicans and the Germans do not have industriousness in common–what they have in common is the hypocrisy of the creditor ethos.
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Oversimplifications: “Obama is a Socialist”
How many times have we heard this one? “Obama is a socialist”, they say, “he’s just like [insert Communist boogie man here]”. There’s an obvious thing being missed by the right when they call Obama a socialist, and that’s that there are endless variations on socialism. So that brings us to our question for today–if Obama is a socialist, what kind of socialist would he be, and who should the right be comparing him to?
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Nanny State Ethics and NYC
Recently New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has gotten into the business of regulating his citizens’ health choices. Two prominent recent examples come to mind:
- Restricting soft drink sizes to no more than 16 ounces
- Discouraging the use of baby formula in favour of breastfeeding
Today I would like to discuss whether or not such regulations or “nudge” policies are within the state’s ethical purview. First, let’s look at what sort of argument opponents of these policies have at their disposal:
Benjamin Studebaker 