Hate-Filled Comments

Professor Bainbridge says he owes Bruce Bartlett an apology.  Maybe so.

I still don't agree with some of Bartlett's current view on economics, which still strike me as "the sort of Keynesian economics he one would have found anathema." Likewise, I still don't agree with his decision to vote for Obama.

But he is clearly right that there has been "a closing of the conservative mind. Rigid conformity is being enforced, no dissent is allowed, and the conservative brain will slowly shrivel into dementia if it hasn't already."

You can see the problem in the many hate-filled comments to my post on why the GOP needs an academic elite or my post on why it's becoming embarrassing to be a conservative.

My curiosity piqued, I went looking for the hate-filled comments.  This was the only one I could find:

@ Sporklift Driver: What happened to me? I got pissed off. The party I have supported and the movement of which I have been a part for decades has been taken over by a bunch of people who are either lightweights (Palin and O'Donnell), ranters (Riehl and Levin), warmongers (all the neo cons), not to mention outright bigots (like Tancredo before he went independent). The GOP in which I grew up was full of smart guys like Jack Kent, Newt Gingrich, Steve Forbes, Howard Baker, Jim Baker, and, yes, Ronald Reagan.

Speaking of Ronald Reagan, one of his great lines was that 1980 debate when he said "I paid for this microphone." Well, I pay for this one, and I'm giving myself the last word.

Posted by: Stephen Bainbridge | 11/11/2010 at 10:55 AM

My emphasis above.

 

Comments

[Matt]

I have to agree with you that Stephen Bainbridge does not provide support for Bruce Bartlett's statement regarding the closing of the Conservative mind.

But I think Bruce Bartlett's own column does provide that support.

Bainbridge doesn't look like he belongs in the same room with someone like Bartlett, and he seems to have a rather overated view of his own web site.

With regard to Bartlett, it is very odd to ostracize a Conservative who criticizes Bush for supporting Medicare Part D. But that is precisely the kind of thing the Republican Party establishment did over the past decade when anyone expressed concern the party was getting off track.

[Tom Bowler]

Sorry for the long tirade here, but...

I'm not sure I agree with Bartlett that conservative minds are closing. Here's what he said in his blog post about David Frum.

Since, he is no longer affiliated with AEI, I feel free to say publicly something he told me in private a few months ago. He asked if I had noticed any comments by AEI "scholars" on the subject of health care reform. I said no and he said that was because they had been ordered not to speak to the media because they agreed with too much of what Obama was trying to do.

It saddened me to hear this. I have always hoped that my experience was unique. But now I see that I was just the first to suffer from a closing of the conservative mind. Rigid conformity is being enforced, no dissent is allowed, and the conservative brain will slowly shrivel into dementia if it hasn't already.

When you go to the AEI's About page you find this:

The American Enterprise Institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. AEI pursues these unchanging ideals through independent thinking, open debate, reasoned argument, facts, and the highest standards of research and exposition. Without regard for politics or prevailing fashion, we dedicate our work to a more prosperous, safer, and more democratic nation and world.

It's hard to imagine that any organization purporting to be committed to expanding liberty and strengthening free enterprise could in any way be supportive of the legislative mess that became Obama's health care reform. It's also hard to imagine that "scholars" of such an organization could be supportive of it, especially when members of congress didn't even know what was in it when they voted in favor of it. That particular fact stands in stark contrast to AEI's commitment to a more democratic nation.

I happen to think to think Obama's health care reform is a disaster that will bankrupt the country. There are some far left Democrats who dutifully maintain that reform is necessary if we hope to rein in health care costs, but aside from them there is no one who thinks this regulatory mess is going to reduce costs or save any money. Insurance premiums are already rising. I for one don't believe it was ever intended to reduce costs. That was only a sales pitch for the naive.

Unless I'm mistaken the position of the American Enterprise Institute is very close to mine. If that is the case, it doesn't strike me as unusual that AEI would part ways with a scholar that publicly contradicts the organization's position. The same would be true of the Republican party. If you support the Obama health care plan, you probably ought to be a Democrat, not a Republican, and I don't agree that it's close minded to hold that position.

And whining about "hate-filled" comments doesn't help the good professor's credibility when he was the one doing the name calling. I have to tell you, I'm not impressed with the guy.

[Matt]

Bartlett uses the treatment of both Frum and himself as examples of the closing of the Conservative mind in his blog. The treatment of Bartlett is far more compelling evidence for this assertion than the treatment of Frum for the reasons you state. Bartlett is a Conservative. Frum is not.

[Tom Bowler]

Possibly, but we only get Bartlett's side of the story and five years have gone by. I haven't kept up with Bartlett lately, but I've linked a couple of times to a 2003 paper of his entitled Supply-Side Economics: “Voodoo Economics” or Lasting Contribution?, which was a pretty good defense of the Reagan tax cuts.

Now, according to Wikipedia, Bartlett has a new book.

In Bartlett's latest book, The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward, he embraces Keynesian ideas, stating that while supply-side economics was appropriate for the 1970s and 1980s, supply side arguments do not fit contemporary conditions.

He seems to be all over the place, but I suppose I should withhold judgment until I read his new book. If I ever get around to it. In any event I'm inclined to forgive conservatives for their inability to keep up with him.

I guess what I'm saying is there may be more to Bartlett's and Frum's firings than the closing of conservative minds. I'm not ready to agree that continuing to hold principles that you've always held means you have a closed mind.

[jtorod]

Yes, conservatives should be more progressive like encouraging taxing, spending and class warfare.

[Matt]

One could claim that Bartlett was a little too cute with the title of his new book because he holds that Reagan economic policies were a success.

And with all due respect, there is something to be said for the fact that it is the Republican Party, not Bartlett, that has been all over the place.

There is a bit of a problem with terminology in that Bartlett is not actually claiming that Conservatives with a capital C are closed-minded.

But the National Review of the 1980s would have had a front page story on Medicare Part D, and would have hauled Bush onto the carpet for it. The current National Review appears to be an arm of the RNC.

And the notion that George W. Bush economic policies were in any way shape or form the same as Reagan policies requires quite a bit of delusion.

In order to be consistent in your principles, you can't support both.

[Tom Bowler]

Much of what you say is on the money, Matt. Still , I'm reluctant to throw George W. Bush under the bus. It's true that he increased spending and entitlements, but for myself I forgave him that figuring that some domestic spending was necessary to counter the argument that the Iraq war was sucking up all the federal resources. In my view winning the Iraq war was unquestionably the most important challenge Bush and America faced.

Also, there are similarities to Bush and Reagan policies. Both were based on cutting the high marginal tax rates as a way to spur economic growth. Both included some form of regulatory relief for business. (That's what progressives say caused our current economic problems). Both increased spending and increased the deficit. At the end of both presidencies the deficit was on a downward trend. Back when Reagan was president a guy I knew told me that the increasing revenues under Reagan were due only to a Keynesian boost in demand from all of the defense spending. There could have been something to what he said.

[Matt]

I find your comment to be somewhat dangerous.

I suppose you could argue that government grew under Reagan. But he dramatically decreased the rate of growth.

Bush, by contrast, dramatically increased the rate of growth.

I saw Bush claim on the Today Show:

"My …spending to GDP was the lowest of modern presidents.”

This is EXTREMELY deceptive.

Given the type of Congress that Reagan inherited, combined with the backdrop of Carter, the third graph at the bottom of the following article shows that Reagan accomplished a miracle. It also shows that Bush was a fraud.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/george-w-bush-biggest-spender-since-lbj/
　

[Tom Bowler]

Dangerous? That's an interesting comment.