Dear Mr. Posner,

I mostly agree with your criticism of conservatives losing intellectual authority. I fully reject the belief that man-made global warming has strong scientific evidence. There are many other plausible causes of generallized warming of the average earths temperature. Disagreeing on global warming is now politically 'incorrect' and not popular, but that does not mean man-made global warming is proven to be true.

Best regards

Paul Carson

Paul, as a climatologist and academician, you are wrong. And I say this as a conservative.

We don't get to pick and choose the reality in which we live. Mad-made climate change has been overblown at times, many of those leading the charge are wacky, but the evidence has long since closed the book on the debate. Man caused global warming, and he did so very quickly and to dramatic, obvious, and measurable effect.

We can only hope man can undo it.

I am not american, but I live in Princeton, New Jersey. New Jersey is of course a Democrat state, but nonetheless I meet plenty of republican conservatives, who definately are to be considered intellectuals.

Saying that the Democrats have a more intellectual agenda than the Republicans is in my eyes a misstatement. I believe the correct words to use is that they have a more populist agenda. In the face of a crisis, the one who speaks for the poor, the elderly, the sick and the week will always prevail - this is far from unique. Just look back at the depression, when european leaders such as Hitler, Franco and Mussolini emerged by appealing to the same groups of people (this is NOT a comparison between the aforementioned leaders and D, I am just trying to show that appealing to the masses does not equal intellectualism).

Saying that greedy bankers (or back then, Jews) are the source of the crisis, and that government should heal the wounds is not intellectual. It is pathetic, and it is sad that the Republican party's answer to this was to put in McPalin and Joe the Plumber.

Conservatism is in no way dead, but the ideas should be restructured and conservative intellectuals should focus more on how to let markets flourish within the correct framework instead of screaming TAX/ABORTION/GAY all the time!

"Disagreeing on global warming is... not popular..."

Because denying anthropogenic global warming is no longer scientifically tenable. It is barely a notch above evolution denial. This is Posner's point.

The reasonable debate would involve global warming *action*. In particular, the estimated $37 trillion needed to limit global warming effects and the associated opportunity costs. This would be much more effective than ad nauseum repetition of long-since discredited claims and pseudo-science that appear to be preferred. "Weak in conception", indeed.

I suspect that the "permanent campaign" paradigm had much to do with the intellectual decline of the conservative movement. I fear that it may also cause a decline of the liberal movement somewhere down the road. See the article below by Joe Klein:

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,1124237,00.html

The idea appears to have occurred to Democrats first: that most every administrative decision has the potential to win or please more constituents. In a sense, this makes a president a better representative of the people. The previous administration and FOX News may have carried it too far, though.

A permanent campaign is necessarily populist. Novelty, outrage, or flattery rather than intelligence comes to drive political decisions. As the best ideas lose their novelty, parties are forced to move down the quality curve to worse ideas. This is the same problem that 24-hour news channels face: we see them reporting on octuplet moms and brain-dead women in Florida. Soon enough there is a motion in Congress to address the issue.

When the next election looms, all the loyalists sit and wonder how they came to abandon their "core principles." It is because the core principles were old news about two months in, and so they went rummaging for minorities, immigrants, women, doctors, environmentalists, secular people, and, eventually "the elites."

The only real principle was to find the next windmill to tilt at. There is something intellectually degrading about politics but I have trouble articulating it.

Oh, really, the science is settled on global warming? For reals and for serious? Well, I'm glad science is so settled that it doesn't need to be studied any more. Just like evolution! I guess we can stop looking for a workable, verifiable, or useful evolutionary theory. That's what the late Steven Jay Gould was working toward, but never found.


Glad to know he wasted his time, as are thousands of biologists across the country. Because we don't need developing science and growing knowledge. We already "know" it. The science is settled! We can move all of that funding somewhere else.


As for global warming, two words, people: solar cycles.


No, anthropogenic global warming is not settled fact. It is not even a fact. Mainly because it's not reality.

"Solar cycles" don't come close to explaining the temperature changes observed over the last 50 years.

The problem with anti-global warming folks (and, admittedly, an issue with a lot of global warming proponents) is that they don't understand the science. They picked a side and are now rationalizing their view. Even if you are right, Ella, it is by chance, not because you know what you are talking about.

Were Becker's summary:

The roots of conservatism go back to philosophers of the 17 and 18th centuries, such as John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith. They opposed big government, and favored private decision-making, primarily because they argued that individuals were generally better able to protect their interests than could government officials tied down by bureaucracy and special interests. They claimed further that making decisions for oneself and suffering the consequences were usually good for people, even when these decisions led to bad outcomes, because learning from one's own mistakes helps improve future choices.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and Posner's comments:

By the end of the Clinton administration, I was content to celebrate the triumph of conservatism as I understood it, and had no desire for other than incremental changes in the economic and social structure of the United States. I saw no need for the estate tax to be abolished, marginal personal-income tax rates further reduced, the government shrunk, pragmatism in constitutional law jettisoned in favor of "originalism," the rights of gun owners enlarged, our military posture strengthened, the rise of homosexual rights resisted, or the role of religion in the public sphere expanded. All these became causes embraced by the new conservatism that crested with the reelection of Bush in 2004.

......... the basis for a Republican platform, they'd have the foundation of a strong franchise (from my perspective) Were such a platform to be sold by someone rational and not a toady for corporate favoritism they'd be tough to beat. But! most of the above has been usurped by Obama, if not quite the rank and file Democratic Congress.

Over the last decades (since Ike?) the Republican cry for "smaller government" has most often been tainted by a call for more sacrifice for working folk than for those of the "owner class" for example a miniscule increase in the min wage or minor strengthening of collective bargaining rules would be uniformly denounced as "inflationary" or "redistributionist" while the massive actual redistribution of the past 30 years and HUGE increases in "compensation" for those nearest the pork barrel are just "market forces at work".

Worse yet, it appears that the cry for smaller government is just that; a cry from the back benches that goes silent once a Reagan or Bush is at the helm and if accompanied by a Republican Congress it's record setting expenditures.

Interesting here........ is that under both Becker and Posner's essays there are few comments about core values and many about the wedge issues of yester-decades, abortion, and the new talk radio led denialism of global warming and man-caused GW.

With those left in the Republican tent being more vocal on "right" social issues than on simply running the nation in a pragmatic manner, and cries of "cuthabudget" being both untimely and not particularly believable along with being "led" in default by the Palins, Limbaugh's and other horrors created recently, it would seem that it's going to be a long unpleasant slog back.

While I take some joy in the situation after seeing and living through the massive damages they've inflicted on our nation, I'd much rather they were a force for the rational debate that a democracy requires in order to make the best decisions. Hopefully there are younger folk examining the wreckage for items of worth that could be used to rebuild an honest and classical sort of conservative voice.

This may sound odd, but I actually found this essay quite moving.

When conservatism loses its usefulness (whether because conservativism changes, or whether society changes), it should be jettisoned. We were conservatives because we were pragmatists, not the other way around.

The essay is a bit wistful and nostalgic, but moreso courageous and keenly insightful about the inevitable change of intellectual positions over time.

По моему у Вас украли эту статью и поместили на другом сайте. Я её уже видела.

У вас на сайте символы как квадратики- исправьте, ато хочется прочитать

I love when Democrats pretend they are intelligent on the global warming issue. The love to pretend Republicans ignore science on this subject and that science is the be all end all for policy.

But then they ignore the scientific fact that life begins before birth. They use judicial activism to come up with an UNSCIENTIFIC definition for life. They call it a constitutional definition even though it isn't in the US Constitution.

Think about this. Imagine what you Dems would call Republicans who made up new definitions in science...?

Partial Birth Abortion is murder. This is a scientific fact. Barrack Obama is the worst abortionist to ever step foot in the white house. While we debate how to "stimulate" the economy with his Keynesian, Barrack is sending our money overseas to fund abortion. The man supported infanticide. At what point, do all you brilliant democrats who preach science wake up and realize how crazy you all are...?

Man Made Global Warming is an unsettled theory.

It is a scientific FACT that partial birth abortion is murder.

Infanticide is barbarism.

The conservative movement lost steam and its compass when:

a) it let the Basel Committee slip by it the idea that lending to sovereign governments rated AAA to AA- did not generate any bank equity requirement... what would our fore-bankers have thought of making a zero-reserve when lending to a Crown?... and

b) when it allowed the Basel Committee to place so much market power in the hands of some outsourced government agents which the credit rating agencies really are.

In short conservatives of today are usurpers.

Who caused the global warming when the ice age ended? 3 guys in a cave? There are plenty of scientists who belive that CO2 increase is a result of warming not the other way round.

In terms of "intellectuals" are you referring to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, Tim Geithner, Hillary Clinton, rahm Emmanuel? I would rather be ignorant. The current Democratic crowd is basing their approach on John Rawls, Saul Alinsky, Cloward-Piven and Zbigniew Brzezinski. All radical but hardly new, fresh and enlightened. It has all been tried before and failed before. To professor Posner I would say that there are still plenty of conservatives around-some with intellects-but they are not allowed to live in Hyde Park.

Not to worry, the new crowd in charge is arrogant and over confident and will over reach quickly. When they do, the "other" crowd will be waiting and no doubt will call themselves "conservatices".

Remember the Alamo. Remember Jimmy Carter.

To add to your list, racism fed the conservative movement in the 60's.

Or is that what you mean when you talk about the "domestic disorder" and "excesses"?

The death of racism (and social "conservatism" in general) as a political tool is also one factor in the failure of the conservative movement.

Simply said, the kids aren't as bad as the parents.

Additionally, conservative economic ideas create a greater wealth disparity between the rich and the poor which ultimately leads to societal instability.

The flawed economic ideas of conservatives create the seeds for its own destruction.

The people will only allow the rich to tilt the playing field so much before they push back.

Conservative intellectuals of the past dressed up flawed ideas in shiny rhetoric but they were simply hiding shabby undergarments the stench of which would inevitably creep from underneath their well-pressed suits.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aD98UaT9kVGw&refer=home

Barry's first deficit is going up to $3.59 trillion. No more playing the blame game for Barrack. His Keynesianism is HIS... and nobody else's. This is your baby...!

The CBO knows Obama's deficits will be disastrous.

Jimmy Carter interest rates, HERE WE COME!!!

Yes, another Reagan Revolution is just around the corner.

The postings by "Anonymous" make Judge Posner's point as effectively (although much less eloquently and thoughtfully)as he does. This is a prime example of the sort of vitriolic rambling that is holding the conservative movement hostage today and preventing an honest debate about the future of the conservative movement in America. Of course, Dick Cheney isn't helping things either. I am a liberal and a "yellow dog" Democrat, but I still want to see true conservatism remake itself and rise from its current ashes. The existence of two distinct schools of thought on economic and social issues is healthy and necessary for our democracy. Ranting about partial birth abortion, global warming, or gay marriage compromises and demeans the true conservative movement. I have to go now. It's unseasonably warm here today and I want to go for a walk.

To add to your list, racism fed the conservative movement in the 60's.

Or is that what you mean when you talk about the "domestic disorder" and "excesses"?

The death of racism (and social "conservatism" in general) as a political tool is also one factor in the failure of the conservative movement.

Simply said, the kids aren't as bad as the parents.

Additionally, conservative economic ideas create a greater wealth disparity between the rich and the poor which ultimately leads to societal instability.

The flawed economic ideas of conservatives create the seeds for its own destruction.

The people will only allow the rich to tilt the playing field so much before they push back.

Conservative intellectuals of the past dressed up flawed ideas in shiny rhetoric but they were simply hiding shabby undergarments the stench of which would inevitably creep from underneath their well-pressed suits.

It's not that the intellectuals passed on, it's that the free flow of information is so much greater today that the same flawed arguments that passed as intellectualism in the past are quickly and thoroughly destroyed in short order.

Conservative "thought" will not be influential in an era where as soon as a National Review article pops up it is immediately exposed as flawed and lacking by dozens of people who are read by millions.

It's not that the conservative intellectual movement has lost its thinkers as much as it is that the world has moved beyond them.

Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin were Hail Mary passes thrown by the "intellectual elites" of the conservative party (just look at how Palin got picked) who spout the same nonsense that was spouted decades ago by Buckley et al. and they can't wash their hands of Joe and Sarah by simply saying "we have no party" as Joe and Sarah spouted what passes for conservative thought and ideas on a daily basis. Their messages are the messages of conservatives. They are simply bad messages and most can see that now.

As far as the flaws of conservative economic thinking being exposed by the economic problems facing us today, those flaws have been known for quite a long time. They've simply been ignored by conservatives. Conservatives tend to be ideologues not intellectuals and that means they'll simply ignore evidence which tends to show they're wrong. Thus we find ourselves in a time where their economic ideas have been thoroughly tested and found wanting and will ultimately be cast aside. Such is the power of the market.

Since someone brought up Barrack's deficits:

Does anyone realize Barrack Obama's military spending is a 4% increase...? This means he is spending more on the military than Bush ever did.

Barrack is escalating the war in afghanistan to a full blown occupation. NATO is not providing any support no matter how much barrack apologizes for America and begs them. Barrack is goinitalone in another war that is another quagmire, the exact same thing that Bush did in Iraq. He has sent in an occupational force with no exit timetable and zero plan to win the peace. All this, and Barrack has never missed an opportunity to drop bombs on Pakistan, even if it means taking out a few innocent civilians.

The difference in media coverage is simply amazing.

You Democrats live in a world that is not reality. You can pretend all you want, but you cannot hide from facts. You think only Bush was the aggressor and you think Obama is the savior of the world. There is not one muslim who sees any difference between the two. Barrack Obama is doing absolutely nothing to restore America's image in the world, it is just perception being funneled by propaganda. You think your guy is too intelligent to wage war, and you guys don't even realize he is waging it.

It is funny to me and funny to anyone who looks at facts and ignores the media's version of the story.

Why doesn't anyone ask Barrack this question:

"Does life begin before birth?"

Nobody in our media will ask this question because it is a simple yes or no question with no rooom for spin. I mean we know the answer is "yes". It is a scientific fact that life begins before birth. There is 100% consensus in the medical community on it.

Why does our media only ask this question only:

"When does life begin?"

I know the answer to this question is above Barrack's pay scale, as are many other questions about responsible economic policy. But this question allows slippery liberals to spin there way around the fact that their policies are wrong. Again, it is a scientific fact that life begins before birth, so there is simply no rationale for carte blanche partial birth abortion, and most certainly not infanticide.

Liberals preach science (and even manipulate science on MMGW) when it fits their agenda, but they discard science when it doesn't fit. This doesn't make you an "intelllect", this makes you a hypocrit.

Barrack can appoint infanticide judges all day long, just shows you how uncompromising and cold-hearted his ideology is.

To what degree have demographics had an effect on popular support for conservative ideologies? Although I have little data (and wish I did!), I do have some suspicions.

Look at the baby boom for example. After the boomers came of age and entered their wealth-producing years in their thirties, forties, and fifties the policies under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush gave them more limited govt, more free markets, less regulation, and lower taxation. These policies have greatly improved quality of life and prosperity for a large portion of our population and a large portion of voters.

But now, the boomers are either retired or are nearing retirement. Isn't it natural to assume that this group would act in its self interest and support greater government intervention and greater government services? Once you have made a decision to substitute leisure for work... then you may also have greater sympathy for others in the same circumstance and want to see the government step in and sustain that leisure. That could explain why my retired parents (once ardent advocates for limited government) are now so sympathetic for unemployed workers and those who do not have healthcare.

While this large slug of people enters retirement, their children are just leaving college and have limited job prospects. Their current lifestyles are inconsistent with entry level wages and they are laden with debt (student loans, credit cards, first mortgage, car loans) and see no clear path for repayment. Conservative ideologies offer little apparent relief for the boomers or their kids, so the liberal message of bigger government is easily embraced.

Here's a huge problem, though- the wealth producers in their 30's and 40's are demographically small and fewer of them vote. How can this smaller group possibly support the barbell ends of the population? Even if the group that generates the bulk of the tax revenue supports policies that favor economic growth and prosperity, they are currently outnumbered at the polls.

I doubt that this dynamic will change until the younger generation wakes up and realizes that they will be expected to pay for the profligacy of their elders. Do you know anyone in their early twenties? Do you really think that they will sacrifice to pay increased taxes to support their retired parents, the unemployed, autoworkers, etc? That's a pretty funny question when you consider that this is the coddled generation. I would be willing to bet that in another 10-15 years this group will once again be a voice for limited government and fiscal prudence.

Conservatism, especially an intellectually stimulating and worthwhile conservatism, needs to reassert itself.

A certain degree of populism is always an essential ingredient to political, electoral success, however, to rely on pure emotionalism lends itself to poroly conceived policies as Mr. Posner clearly states.

Therefore, it is important that those who believe that cultural conservatism is not retrograde, but a pivotal mechanism for avoiding the growth of nihilistic despair, must better articulate their reasoning.

It is not enough to say that "God says it's wrong" as there are too many interpretations of what God means. However, conservatism, as in conserving tradition and allowing progress to move slowly and pragmatically, as opposed to radically, is an emminently defensible position.

The loss of the culture wars has led to too many single household families and many economic hardships that correspond to that reality.

The loss of the culutre wars has a bred a post-modernist sensibility in too many youth that now seems to believe that any judgements made are by definition "oppressive" and or/ignorant.

The loss of the culture wars has unmoored legitimate capitalist instincts from ethics and allowed greed to run rampant and the disadvantaged to seek salvation in unrealistic messianism.

The loss of the culture wars has been an unmitigated disaster for this nation and it was lost during the conservative ascendancy. That is a strong rebuke.

Today, the remaining culture warriors, disillusioned by the decline in values, too often come across as angry and unwilling to engage is reasoned debate. This makes it too easy for them to be caricaturized, delegitimzed, and stigmatized.

For the conservative movement to rise again, it must use reason to bolster its arguments and find intellectual champions who can battle the new rise of leftist "Liberalism" on its own terms.

To be pro-life, pro-family, pro-second amendment,strong on national security are not backwards looking positions. They are forward looking, we just have to present them as such.

The global warming issue is far from settled.

Furthermore, can I remind you that science is not demcratic ? Einstein was right not because of the number of people who believed he was, but because he proved his theory with a scientific method.

I have strong reasons to think the man-made global warming is bogus.

In fact, what interests me more is why so many people absolutely want to believe in a theory so weak ?

A partial answer is : if men can change the climate, it means they are strong and powerful, and everebody like to hear being strong and powerful, even if it implies nastiness.

It's much more appealing than to hear the men have no more influence on the climate than flies.

Another bit of answer is that it reminds ancient myths : the good but irritable Nature disturbed by the presomptuous industrial man.

How can Barrack Obama be a Keynesian and also not accept responsibility for the deficits he runs...? If you think govt. spending is "economic stimulus" be a MAN and take responsibility for your policy.

Blaming Bush for everything isn't going to work. Obama is bankrupting our country and pointing fingers while it goes down. This is what extreme ideologues do, they put party before country.

Who in their right mind thinks government can afford nationalized healthcare when it is currently running a $1.8 trillion deficit with a $3.6 trillion estimate for 2010?

Seriously, if you think Capitalism and Free Markets are failures and if you think Government spending is the solution to everything, then how on this earth can you not accept responsibility for expansion of government and deficits???

Obama needs to stop being a child. This man is a worldclass liar. He increased the military budget by 4% for crying out loud. These are HIS deficits, and if he thinks running deficits is economi

This subject has been debated ad nauseum on Volokh Conspiracy.

Both Professors conflate the Republican Party with conservatism, and conflate conservatism with libertarianism.

Re global warming. When I see reasonably convincing proof that (a) the climate today is ideal (b) that global warming will have enough bad effects to outweigh the good PLUS the cost of attempting to reverse global warming PLUS the cost of potentially sending the economy back to before the Industrial Revolution AND (c) that there are not relatively inexpensive ways of avoiding most of the bad effects of global warming (e.g. moving people out of coastal areas), then I will support plans to deal with a warming that (x) is taking place and (y) seems to be correlated with human economic activity.

However, discourse today seems to jump from (1) the climate is gradually warming to (2) we're all going to die unless we move carbon emissions back to where they were before the Declaration of Independence.

"Man Made Global Warming is an unsettled theory.

It is a scientific FACT that partial birth abortion is murder.

Infanticide is barbarism."

It is perhaps a fact that life begins at conception, this anyone will concede. BUT it is not a fact that personhood begins at conception. This is almost certainly something that can't really be proven by science.
If murder is merely the taking of human life by a human, then perhaps abortion is murder. But if murder refers to persons, then it is almost certainly not.
Furthermore, there is no obvious way why we should consider human life more valuable than any other life. If killing those cells in utero is so wrong, why are antibacterial hand soaps not murder?

So how does a Keynesian blame someone else for his deficits....?

Each time Barrack Obama blames someone else for his 2010 deficit, which now is pegged at $3.6 trillion (approx. 4 times George W Bush's largest annual deficit) he illustrates that he is both a partisan child and a liar. If Capitalism is so bad and Government is the solution to everything, how can you not be responsible for its increasing size and the inevitable increasing deficits that comes with such policies...?

Conservatives are sick and tired of people blaming and demonizing capitalism and free markets for everything. It is a simple fact that Government had a huge role in the mess we are in today. Government gave GSE's the implicit guarantee and sent them to unsustainable levels. Government sponsored the unsustainable business model of subprime lending.

I think Obama will end up being the most destructive president this country has ever had. The bill he passes on to future generations will destroy this nation. It is insurmountable. He will also put extreme ideologues on our Court who will think foreign law has to be precedent and that property rights have to be eliminated for "economic" stimulus or development reasons. Afterall, the Communist Manifesto reads very clear in our Constitution's Preamble.

"personhood"

Which word will you make up next while you disregard science and consensus from the medical community...? I'm sure you, Ruth Ginsburg, and Obama's next blunderous pick for the Court can come up with a few more.

Partial birth abortion steals an innocent life. There is simply no rationale for the Democrat's policies of carte blanche, none with any morals anyway.

Infanticide is the most barbaric practice humanity has witnessed.

Hume might be amused by the variations of his Guillotine in this discussion.

To answer "Anonymous" two posts above this one (May 11 2009 12:16PM), sure. Your statements are a bit zealous, but frankly I find any comparisons to the Democratic party irrelevant. Everyone should hold it as its ideal to do what ought to be done, not simply be better than the alternative- anything else quickly plays to the lowest common denominator. Another person being wrong doesn't make you any less wrong.

-

To respond to Greg Lawson, you're quite correct. There are intellectually strong and respected arguments for conservatism, based on empiricism or a priori reasoning. Though certain theories and philosophies require modification, as always, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with conservatism.

The intellectually vital conservatism of Locke and other such thinkers contrasts greatly with the current "conservative" party. The GOP is not only ignorant, but anit-intellectual in many ways. This is not to say that there are no intelligent conservatives, but rather that they have little sway in their party, or are using their sway to promote anit-intellectualism (as someone earlier suggested).

There is a very big and very important difference between a reasoned argument for conservatism and Glenn Beck shouting (to paraphrase), "Just believe something, even if its wrong, just believe!". You see this in the global warming debate, as David outlined- denying that there is climate change is basically intellectually unsound, but making an argument that it is not cost effective to enact the laws that Liberals want and that there is some overhype of the issue is perfectly valid.

When the Republican Party decides to revisit their intellectual roots and dust off their books, they will find themselves revitalized and able to compete in elections. A good many of them may find that they are libertarians as well, even if they decide that getting more than .5% of the vote is worth being associated with the religious right.

Judge Posner, bravo!

Obviously Becker and Posner have hit a nerve with this most recent post! It is sad, though, that the comments are so overwhelmingly crude, rude, ignorant, and thoughtlessly partisan. This is not discourse, it is venting. I also wonder, is Anonymous in a bad mood every day?

Jay said:

"To add to your list, racism fed the conservative movement in the 60's." *************************************************************

Scratch some of the leading respectable thinkers and what do you find --

"... there are real problems in defining and interpreting discrimination. The man who exercises discrimination pays a price for doing so... it is hard to see that discrimination can have any meaning other than a "taste" of others one does not share. We do not regard it as discrimination... if an individual is willing to pay a higher price to listen to one singer rather than another, although we do if he is willing to pay a higher price to have services rendered to him by a person of one color rather than another... is there any difference in principle between the taste that leads a householder to prefer an attractive servant to an ugly one and the taste that leads another to prefer a Negro to a white or a white to a Negro except that we sympathize and agree with the one taste and may not with the other?... Fair Employment Practices Legislation... interferes with the freedom of individuals to enter into voluntary contracts..."

From Milton Freidman, Capitalism and Freedom, p110 - 111. There is a lot more in a similar vein. And he was the respectable face of what others said more honestly.
*********
PS Judge Posner did not say that only fools denied man has caused global warming. He said that denying global warming is the substition of will for intellect. Global warming is a fact; deniers such as Imhofe are discrediting conservatism. I regard causation as not settled even though I acknowledge that the scientific consensus agrees that it is man made.

Anonymous,
Are you asking whether there exists such a thing as personhood? Or are you stating that unborn infants are persons?
I will not argue that there exists some intangible notion of personhood that is present in all humans. Instead, I shall argue that most people have a notion of personhood. I will be surprised if you would say that someone in a coma is a person, or if someone is fully brain dead they are a person. A person is capable of rational choice.

I would also like to hear your argument for the reason we should value an unborn infant's life so unconditionally. Do you extend the same unconditional protectionism towards criminals and the death penalty? Towards soldiers? Towards animals and bacteria?

I would like to see you make clear your reasoning and justification for your claims. I have already said that I do not dispute whether an unborn fetus is alive. I only dispute whether that should enter into ethical debate.

If you refuse to argue reasonably, which seems to be the course of action you are choosing, I have nothing more to say to you. I think anyone observing the argument can see that I have at least attempted to use rational arguing methods, while you so far seem to appeal strongly to ad hominum fallacy.

Birdwin: Would that the following were true!!

"After the boomers came of age and entered their wealth-producing years in their thirties, forties, and fifties the policies under Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush gave them more limited govt, more free markets, less regulation, and lower taxation."

.......... truth is while a lot of 'em "tried" for a getting off cheap strategy, it hasn't worked out. In recent years we've spent about the same percentage of GDP on government as we did pre-Reagan. The "lower taxes" were only a deferred payment plan with the interest on the debt resulting in a slightly higher overall cost of government than before.

Also, while MUCH has been made of the "fewer workers to support yadda" if we look back a bit more closely it was an era of MUCH lower productivity per worker.

......... take a look at the productivity vs wage graph at the bottom of the article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5303590.stm

..... HAD wages followed productivity increases as they once did, SS would be in much better shape as would Medicare. And...... of course the biggest effect would be more pay in your pay envelope.

My guess is that we'll soon be in an era of rapid gains in productivity. Some of it is the changing demographics you point out which will result in a shortage of workers, a tendency toward higher pay, which will result in more investment in and development of more productive methods.

The last time we were really short of working folk was during WWII, and to some extent the 60's before "boomers" joined the workforce. In both of those eras productivity gains were high. Today, I'd predict that the foundation of relatively recent gains in IT, biotech and other tech will make a burst of productivity fairly predictable.

At the other end of the spectrum we see surplus retail capacity closing all across the nation, most likely forever, as we've been over retailed for a long time due to surplus labor and the miserable wages that kept marginal retailers alive and even opening more stores so that the thin margins might add up to a viable biz plan if a company operated enough of them.

Further? those young today are likely to advance at a rapid pace due to the vacuum left behind as boomers retire in droves. All is not as bleak as advertised!

Ha! it's interesting that the neocons here keep on with the talk-radio wedge issues that for the most part aren't working well these days, instead of what might be the best of the conservative movement.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

James B sez:

"I am a liberal and a "yellow dog" Democrat, but I still want to see true conservatism remake itself and rise from its current ashes. The existence of two distinct schools of thought on economic and social issues is healthy and necessary for our democracy."

James FWIW I've long thought that the political spectrum was a circle rather than a see-saw. On that circle I see thoughtful and engaged liberals seated adjacent to PRINCIPLED conservatives and decent debate between the two is likely to gin up the best policies.

If those two groups are cozied up on one side of the table who is on the other side? It's the unprincipled partisans of the recent neo-con ilk, along with self-serving rent-seekers of all political persuasions.

I like my circle theory as it identifies the enemy not as "liberal vs conservative" but principled folk hoping to do the best for their country vs those trying to ladle as much pork for themselves as possible.

Спасибо огромное. Почитал и понравилось. Картинок бы ещё

I don't think conservatives deny facts on the globe's temperature or facts on polar ice. But there is currently a cooling trend taking place. If anyone is denying facts, it is Al Gore and the fascists forcing a Cap and Trade tax down our throats in the middle of a recession. Why not see where this latest trend is going first..., since we are cooling...? Let's get some more facts in to see whether Temp. follows CO2 or whether CO2 does in fact follow Temp. The simple fact is this relationship is not fully understood. We could be chasing a ghost by capping carbon. We already did that once on ethanol, so let's not bring back $4 gallon gas again.

Man Made Global Warming is an unsettled theory. Rushing kneejerk policies that destroy our economy is some of the most irrational proposal we have ever seen from policy makers. Conservatives just want rational policy based on real science. Manipulating science and using scare tactics is a form of FASCISM.

You guys call conservatives stupid because we question the need for a carbon tax based on an unsettled scientific theory on Man-Made Global Warming, yet you disregard the scientific fact that partial birth abortion wastes innocent human life.

I never thought it was possible to reach this level of hypocrisy, but you liberals have managed to do it with flying colors. Congratulations...!

How does a Keynesian point fingers when he racks up huge deficits...? Obama is a childish partisan ideologue for blaming everyone else for his Keynesian deficits. These are YOUR DEFICITS BARRACK, this is your BABY and you CANNOT ABORT IT or kill it with your INFANTICIDE...!

While I agree with most of what you've written, I don't agree that the conservative has any social or political capital upon which to rest at this point (even their knee-jerk braying of "Reagan! Reagan!", which worked with the sheep for so long, now has most of the country rolling it's collective eyes_. George Bush wore it threadbare, and then, after the crash, Alan Greenspan completely exposed it as a fraud. The only thing that's left for conservatives to do now is state that anything not Friedmanian is socialismm and we've all seen how that's worked for them thus far.

I agree almost all of Mr. Posner arguments. Of course I highlight this point: The end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the surge of prosperity worldwide that marked the global triumph of capitalism, the essentially conservative policies, especially in economics, of the Clinton administration, and finally the election and early years of the Bush Administration, marked the apogee of the conservative movement.

Why doesn't someone do a simple survey of the public. One question; "Do you trust the government?"

Judge Posner is not far off the mark particularly in highlighting flaws in conservative economic theory but I think he both overestimates the extent of the conservative revolution in 2000 and exaggerates the decline of Keynesianism. There's no doubt the political center had moved somewhat rightwards by 2000 but it's impetus had been considerably slowed by the Clinton administration which despite its domestic political travails was by most measures highly effective as Judge Posner implies. We then embarked on the Bush adventure when movement conservative positions on social and economic issues were embraced more fervently than ever. But in economic matters it was all done on Keynesian terms. What was the administration's and the Fed's reaction to the dot com bubble burst if not Keynesian. In other realms have 20 years of Republican governance substantially altered the balance of social programs instituted by Democratic presidents. Not really. All that happened was that they reduced the revenue streams available to pay for them and thus piled up record deficits. Judge Posner seems to be relying on Democratic over reach to bring about their downfall. A belief he shares with the unlikely duo of Limbaugh and Cheney. I wouldn't count on it Judge, certainly not in the medium term of say 8 years by which time the center will have moved visibly left.

I am curious for your thoughts on an idea I have been chewing on recently.
As a DC native and resident with some involvement in politics (it is a company town after all), it has become apparent to me that many of the ills we suffer are the result of the institutionalized interest groups in DC. The impact these groups, both left and right, has expanded dramatically over the last few decades. These groups are no longer purely academics. Many hold to the title of 'think tank' simply because we have no other commonly understood definition for such an organization. They are, however, merely advocates. Academics let results arise naturally out of the data...advocates begin with the desired outcome in mind and present only that data which supports their position.
Consequently, I propose that the legislature ought to be required to spend at least 9 months per year in their home state or district. I am not a communications expert, but I do believe that the telecommunications infrastructure to make this possible (bandwidth, security, etc.) does exist.
The outcome I seek is the diffusion of the impact these groups have on government policy.
Please share your thoughts (including hysterical laughter at my idiocy) as you are able.
Thank you,

"The only thing that's left for conservatives to do now is state that anything not Friedmanian is socialismm and we've all seen how that's worked for them thus far."

No political capital, hey? Talk to me after Barrack racks up his $10 trillion deficits. A keynesian who points fingers and does not accept responsibility for the debt he passes onto the next generation is a childish partisan with a wreckless and destructive ideology.

Talk to me when inflation runs rampant and we have Jimmy Carter interest rates all over again.

Talk to me when utility costs are sky high.

Talk to me after Nancy Pelosi gets caught in a few more lies.

Those who think conservatism will not rebound are absolutely foolish and naive people who actually believe Government is the answer to everything.

The only question is just how much damage will Barrack do in his time. Will we actually get foreign law as precedent? Will they eliminate property rights in the name of economic stimulus? Will infanticide actually be practiced routinely because babies who are born and escape abortion aren't "life" or "personhood" according to Ruth Badir Ginsburg? Will the US dollar have any credibility when Debt/GDP is post WWII levels?

Obama is out in 4. Nancy Pelosi is out in 2...! It cannot get here soon enough.

Очень интересно. Но чего-то не хватает. Может быть, стоит добавить каких-нибудь картинок или фото?

The deficit in Obama's 2009-2010 budget will be ~1.7 trillion.
The overall budget is projected at 3.6 trillion. This spending level went up automatically because of this horrible recession.
Obama and congress added more spending to ward off a depression.
Let's get our facts straight posters!

Obama is frankly and honestly using Keynsian economics to fight this recession, just as GW Bush did in 2002-2004. The problem was that Bush didn't move to budget balance in 2005-2007. Keynsianism recommends deficit spending when private sector activity declines, and balanced budgets when the private sector is robustly growing.

As for global warming - it is true that CO2 went up naturally
at the end of the last ice age - but this doesn't prove that the current rise is not man made. The fact is, we absolutely know that CO2 and methane are green house gases, and that increasing their abundance in the atmosphere will trap more solar heat in our atmosphere. One poster suggested that moving people away from coasts will be a modest cost! What a weird fantasy! If sea levels rise, millions of americans will lose valuable real property - the costs will not be modest!

A keynesian who points fingers and blames others for his deficits is a child. A keynesian who passes the bill to the next generation is a wreckless ideologue.

These deficits are Barrack's BABY, and he cannot abort this BABY...!

"Obama is frankly and honestly using Keynsian economics to fight this recession, just as GW Bush did in 2002-2004."

So George W. Bush wasn't a conservative, and Barrack Obama is more of a Keynesian than Bush was. Exactly...!

Congratulations, Keynesianism owns this entire mess...!

Jack, I'm surprised to say this, but I agree with you. My underlying question is whether there are generational demographic trends that have a significant effect on the success of political ideologies.

If large groups of people vote their self interest...then it makes sense to me that if the boomers wanted more discretionary income and a consumptive lifestyle, then during the past two decades they would have supported lower income taxes. EVEN if that meant a deferred payment plan and higher cost of government overall. A cheap trick, yes, but a good (and selfish!) bet for this group if it can successfully pass the bill to the next generation right?

As this group is now entering retirement, my guess is that their wage incomes will decline and they will rely on pension income, social security and begin drawing down their wealth reserves. Again, if they are voting their self-interest... wouldn't their priority be preservation of social security and medicare benefits and extension of other government benefits and services? They would also have little reason to oppose income tax hikes on the higher brackets as their taxable incomes are on the decline. They would, however, be opposed to capital gains tax increases and estate tax increases as they liquidate their assets.

Which brings me to the suckers now in their 30's and 40's who are footing the bill for the largesse. It is awfully difficult for me to find anyone in their mid-30's that is not a classical liberal. Talk to the average 35 yr old and I'll bet you uncover the following views- govt should leave people alone, govt is wasteful and inefficient, gay marriage and abortion is a personal issue (why does the govt care about this again?), healthcare is expensive but I only need it for pregnancy or if something really bad happens like a car accident, being green is great but only if it doesn't cost me anything. For many of the people in this group their interaction with the government is limited to standing in line at the DMV or city hall- a decidedly painful experience. Amazingly, if you have these views neither the Republican nor the Democratic party is particularly attractive right now, since they both seem to be occupied by a bunch of crazy people.



As you point out very clearly, productivity per worker has increased and likely will continue to increase so the demographic retirement cliff should be offset by productive gains across a relatively smaller employee base. Unfortunately the workers in the middle also have little political clout and may continue to be suckers that foot the bill for their elders and the guys just behind them. May also explain why their wages since 2001 haven't kept up with productivity increases.



The children of the boomers came out strong in the 2008 election and were a voice for more government. They received the benefits of the consumptive lifestyle of their parents (nice cars, new houses, cell phones, etc.) but are unable to finance that lifestyle on their own at entry-level wages. Wealth transfer is an attractive solution for this group, regardless of whether that transfer is from the government or from their parents. How many parents are gifting these guys the down payment on their first home?!! Why not also ask the government to forgive their student loan debt, write-down their principal balance on their first mortgage, freeze their credit card interest rate, reduce their tax rates, and give them free healthcare?



As I mentioned before, as this group ramps up their earnings and starts creating wealth, then I would suspect their views on the proper size and scope of government to change as well.

Some of Posner's points are well taken, and I agree with the comment that demographics plays a major role in the decline of conservatism. But to say that the basis of the "new conservatism" (as he defines it) is "emotion and religion" fails to examine the basis for these positions.

The reference to "homosexual rights" is a case in point. As individuals, homosexuals have always had equal rights, but societies maintain themselves by upholding social norms which underpin the family and by rejecting violations of those norms. The family has functions basic to society which are intrinsically heterosexual - procreation, child-rearing (mothers and fathers have unique roles in the life of a child, are not fungible), and vital importance of tying males to marital responsibilities, something that will only happen in a relationship with a woman. Homosexual conduct is itself not a threat to the family, but sanctioning necessarily affects the broader culture.

This is a concise way of putting it, but I would challenge those who believe that the pro-homosexual position is intellectually defensible to explain why societies which have accepted it concomitantly have such negative vital statistics (below replacement-level fertility, marriage, etc.). I've yet to see anyone put forward the case that the Left's social model is a sustainable one.

Some of Posner's points are well taken, and I agree with the comment that demographics plays a major role in the decline of conservatism. But to say that the basis of the "new conservatism" (as he defines it) is "emotion and religion" fails to examine the basis for these positions.

The reference to "homosexual rights" is a case in point. As individuals, homosexuals have always had equal rights, but societies maintain themselves by upholding social norms which underpin the family and by rejecting violations of those norms. The family has functions basic to society which are intrinsically heterosexual - procreation, child-rearing (mothers and fathers have unique roles in the life of a child, are not fungible), and vital importance of tying males to marital responsibilities, something that will only happen in a relationship with a woman. Homosexual conduct is itself not a threat to the family, but sanctioning necessarily affects the broader culture.

This is a concise way of putting it, but I would challenge those who believe that the pro-homosexual position is intellectually defensible to explain why societies which have accepted it concomitantly have such negative vital statistics (below replacement-level fertility, marriage, etc.). I've yet to see anyone put forward the case that the Left's social model is a sustainable one.

In response to "Reader" who said: "The family has functions basic to society which are intrinsically heterosexual - procreation, child-rearing, and vital importance of tying males to marital responsibilities"

1) marriage is about more than procreation, and please note that we allow marriage for post-menaposal women, sterile people, and people who simply don't want to have children.

2) if marriage and family are good for society, then perhaps it is good for society to encourage homosexuals to settle down in a committed relationship with another person with all the responsibilities that brings. by banning same-sex marriage, we are making it more difficult for long-term monogamy.

so, assuming promiscuity and lack of more serious commitment is harmful for society, it follows that it is good for society to encourage same-sex marriage.

Interesting piece. Some of the user-comments are thoughtful too.

While I agree that the GOP has lost all touch with intellectual conservatism, I don't see any particularly intellectual leanings in the current Democratic party either, even if they continue to enjoy the votes of the academic elite. This isn't the shift of a single party, but of the entirety of American political discourse. Smartypants eggheads don't win you elections in this country, no matter how well reasoned their theories or arguments. Mostly, it seems, you win because of emotional reactions AGAINST the other party.

Here we have a well-written and insightful piece about how the conservative movement is being harmed by pre-occupation with emotional issues, religious issues, and scientific ignorance. And it is followed by pages upon pages of angry rants by fellow conservatives almost exclusively about abortion and climate change denial. This is truly irony at its finest.

"While I agree that the GOP has lost all touch with intellectual conservatism, I don't see any particularly intellectual leanings in the current Democratic party either, even if they continue to enjoy the votes of the academic elite. This isn't the shift of a single party, but of the entirety of American political discourse. Smartypants eggheads don't win you elections in this country, no matter how well reasoned their theories or arguments. Mostly, it seems, you win because of emotional reactions AGAINST the other party."

True, and a legacy of the conservative movement more interested in winning elections (to support their ideology) than in the best interests of the country. Getting people to vote against their economic interests is truly anti-intellectual.

Where the Judge and I disagree is on the validity of the conservative economic theory itself. Trickle-down did not work. In Sunday's NYT, in the 1970s, American workers saved 14% of income. In 2005, the savings rate was negative 2.5%. The conservative economic theory decimated the middle class and Judge Posner's post does not address that fact.

This is the biggest problem conservatives face. How do they get back credibility with the middle class who are not Southerners?

My God "Anonymous", the man is your President. Spell his damn name right! Since you have hijacked the thread with your "since someone mentioned ____, here's my seven paragraph screed on ____(insert Republican talking points, innuendo,and conspiracy theory here), at least spell his name right. It's Barack.

The sad part about this comment section, is how misguided most of the comments seem to be.

Posner is giving you the Key, the solution to bring Conservatism back to the forefront. The Key to becoming a rational force for change, and a positive one.

And in the face of his gift, the comments have degenerated into Obama bashing and a narrative about all the irrelevant issues that Posner TOLD you to stop focusing on.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5ieXw28ZUpg/SgmX0dTi6GI/AAAAAAAABIM/QJX19BAVlec/s1600-h/colgrad.PNC

Check the link.

"Here we have a well-written and insightful piece about how the conservative movement is being harmed by pre-occupation with emotional issues, religious issues, and scientific ignorance. And it is followed by pages upon pages of angry rants by fellow conservatives almost exclusively about abortion and climate change denial. This is truly irony at its finest."

was wondering when someone was going to point that out. The far right has pushed reasonable, pragmatic conservatives to the fringe; as a democrat I say well done.

Anonymous. At least learn how to spell your president's name. It's Barack, not "Barrack."

Even liberals agree that a fetus is a fully human person. The question is not whether the fetus has a right to life (of course it does), but rather, does it have the right to use the woman's body in order to sustain that right? Has the woman, through engaging in sexual intercourse, consented use of her womb to the fetus?

Your posts are distracting at best, crippling to the Pro-Life movement at worst.

There is an intelligent debate over consent with respect to abortion; stop muddling it with your asinine, "anonymous" ramblings.

The Posner piece is excellent. As far as the climate change debate is concerned, though, we have a wee problem. Would it be possible to leave the science debate to the scientists? Discussion of causation, solar cycles, temperature readings, model results etc. should of course be the subject of continued scientific inquiry and research. It is absurd that both Climate Change advocates and Climate Change deniers have made their positions a matter of faith. It's as if the belief systems on both sides are a matter of religion at this point.

The quality of the debate naturally suffers once an issue becomes politicized beyond recognition.

To claim that an embryo is a human life worthy of all the full rights and privileges thus granted is absurd. There is a scientific standard to judge this by- a fetus doesn't develop a central nervous system or have brain function until at least the fifth month of pregnancy. Until then, its just a clump of cells. Living cells, but hardly a "human".

Using brain function for such a determination meshes well with our current legal standards regarding death. A patient without brain function can legally be removed from life support.

To suggest a legal standard of when human life begins that is not based in science would be a violation of the 1st amendment establishment clause.

An intelligent piece by mr. Posner (as usual) marred by the usual asinine comments from what passes as "Conservatives" these days. These are people who just walk around with their hands over their ears all day and make loud nonsense sounds so they will not have to aknowledge reality. How is a new Conservatism to be born from such corrupted soil?

Todji.

For the record, I do not think that a woman consents to pregnancy when she consents to sexual intercourse. Hopefully that helps frame my (above) assertion that a fetus is a fully human person.

I think the debate over personhood is a dead end. It's better to accept the Pro-Life assertion that the fetus is a person, worthy of rights, because it does nothing to damage the Pro-Choice argument that the woman has not consented to pregnancy by consenting to sex. All the personhood argument does is keep the debate in a deadlock.

You're right in everything you said about the nervous system, but to meet the Pro-Lifers halfway by accepting their full-personhood proposal helps advance the argument to a point where religion (and the establishment clause) can no longer be used to buttress the Pro-Life argument. Consent is only a legal issue, not a religious one.

The personhood of a fetus is completely irrelevant when the debate is framed with respect to consent. This concession does much to calm the Pro-Life side.

At this point, I believe that it is a bed of thorns, not laurels, that today's "conservatism" is resting on.

Also not reported in our media, there is a major rift in the Democrat party forming. There are real anti-war people in this country who thought Obama was anti-war. Obama used these people to politicize war in order to win. Since winning, he has escalated the war in afghanistan and not changed a thing in iraq. Obama has also managed to do some major damage on innocent civilians in Pakistan. And possibly worst of all, Obama increased the military budget by 4% in his first year. All not to shabby for the anti-war candidate who defeated Hillary Clinton in the primary.

There are good honest people out there who feel betrayed by this.

"I think the debate over personhood is a dead end."

Of course it is, which is why i chose not to respond to it. This is just another way for the liberal to sidestep his conscience and avoid the facts.

Ginsburg and the lefty judges call it a "constitutional" definition for life. Same idea as "personhood". Whatever you liberals want to call it, there is no denying this SCIENTIFIC FACT that has 100% consensus from the medical community:

Your policy of carte blanche abortion steals an innocent human life.

Now go on and give me a scientific lecture on man-made global warming and try to convince me we need to tax carbon...! Al Gore's fascist tactics are amusing. How many nobel peace prizes has he won for his propaganda...?

The Audacity of the TRUTHHHHHH!!!!

spike wrote:
All the personhood argument does is keep the debate in a deadlock
---------------------------------------
I disagree. At some point we all recognize that the developing child becomes worthy of some legal protections and considerations. The questions is where? Birth? Conception? Viability?

Thus far, the basic legal doctrine has settled on viability. But with advances in technology, there's no reason that in the near future viability couldn't come at conception. Plus, at the time of Roe v. Wade, we didn't have the knowledge we have now about fetal brain/central nervous system development and we hadn't the legal precedents for brain death set by Quinlan and other cases.

The existence of brain function isn't the end of the conversation, but I think it provides a minimum point beyond which abortion can't be restricted without violating the establishment clause. I don't think that it imposes an undue burden on women to terminate their pregnancies before this stage of development, though I'd be open to hearing arguments otherwise.

I'd also possibly allow for abortions after this point of a pregnancy, certainly in cases where the mother's health/life is at stake if not others.

Anonymous: Quick one: Considering that the US economy has not created enough jobs since 1980 without deficit spending (with perhaps the arguable exception of a couple Clinton years) we may well have entered a "post-Keynesian" era in which all that we need is produced by a falling percentage of the workforce.

Currently, if you've been following along, over the last 40 years virtually ALL of the productivity gains have gone to, shall we say an "owner class" with the result being that fewer and fewer low income families EARN enough to pay for the most basic std of living OR to sop up the excess merchandise the "owner class" must sell if the game is to continue.

"Trickle down" has defied gravity for all of those decades leaving even the median income family with enough discretionary income to buy much of anything from those attempting to sell the stuff.

If you've played a few games of Monopoly what happens in the final rounds is something of a metaphor for what is and has been taking place for a long, long time.

Your talk-radio "advisers" will call the attempt to keep the game going "redistributionist" but if YOU do your OWN fairly simple research you'll quickly learn that "class warfare" took place in the decades since Reagan was elected and the WORKING class lost. Badly.

Think it through, as it is ONLY when "conservatives" learn that ALL of our community has to participate in the wealth generated by our ever increasing productivity that they'll have any narrative likely to return them to power.

Posner wrote: "The policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings...the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect, as in the denial of global warming...a continued preoccupation with abortion."

Then, Uzair wrote: "Anthropogenic global warming is not settled fact. It is not even a fact. Mainly because it's not reality."

Then, Anonymous wrote: "Infanticide is the most barbaric practice humanity has witnessed."

I'm starting to see a pattern emerging here - Posner tells conservatives what they can do to win back the trust of the people and all the wingnuts ignore him and keep on with the same tired old arguments that got them comprehensively beaten at the last election.

You can call Barack a murderer, you can blame the Liberal media or you can see that the writing's on the wall. Your choice.

"Why doesn't someone do a simple survey of the public. One question; "Do you trust the government?"

Posted by Jim at May 12, 2009 8:25 AM | direct link

I think most conservatives would answer "yes"....

Why? What do they want government to finance? Larger police forces, bigger military, more copious prisons, religion in schools and hospitals...all of the things they hold most dear.

If the last 8 years has proven anything it is that any remaining conservative intellectuals are certainly not in power or in a position of prominence. Virtually nothing the GOP has put forth recently has had any relevance or positive effect, ala Palin, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, N. Korea, Pakistan, Sudan, Israel, the Taliban, al Qaeda, the environment, economics (although I am sure Robert Nardelli would disagree), health care, education, civil liberties, the Constitution, crime, human, cultural or religious equality, global financial stability, evolutionary perturbation, and finally, “the only thing we have to fear…”. I hate to say this but bi-partisan politics now represents the relationship between Democrats and Independents.

The President of the United States is named Barack Obama. Barrack Obama is probably the name of a military housing facility somewhere, but it is not the name of the President.

What happened to the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness...? I guess the 8.99 month old fetus doesn't get any of these, nor does the born infant who survives a botched abortion according to BARACK Obama.

Overly compassionate when it means keeping white firemen from promotion, but barbaric when it comes to protecting human life.

I need some more science on global warming. We just had the coldest winter since the 1970's, so please let me know all about the Obamination's carbon tax.

Conservatism has bad ideas, policies and execution? Liberals have been saying that for, oh, jeez, centuries? I have to say I'm am pleased and surprised to see that even Milton Friedman's magical thinking (a/k/a "The Longest Running One-Joke Show Since Gilligan's Island) can now be criticized instead of accepted as religious dogma. If conservatives keep making progress like that, they will be in the 21st Century any decade now.

But what you don't see is that a lot of the characteristics that you identify as failures of new conservatism were part of old conservatism, too. Just read through the list again.

I don't see how someone can observe the astronomical deficits being racked up in 2009 (which roughly equals the combined deficits from 2000-08!) and think that conservatism -- or at least fiscal conservatism -- can rest on its laurels. Between Medicare and Social Security's huge unfunded liabilities and the current administration's spending proclivity that put even GWB's budgets to shame, I have serious concerns about how we're going to pay for all of this. If the essence of conservatism is to stand athwart history yelling, "STOP!" then we need a bit of that when it comes to American fiscal policy, more than ever.

Many of the comments here prove the underlying point of Posner's essay.

The funny thing is that Anonymous just proves Mr. Posner's point over and over again.

It looks to me as if few of the folk posting here have had much experience with discussion boards; I say that based on the ease with which a troll has almost completely seized the thread.

Trolls need to be ignored, not fed. Don't feed them and eventually they wander off somewhere else.

The words conservative intellectual is an oxymoron.

""Solar cycles" don't come close to explaining the temperature changes observed over the last 50 years."

Given that you have at most 150 years of actual data, your statement is unimpressive at best. And if you are going to claim that someone does not understand the science make sure you're looking in a mirror when you say that. You do not have any sort of realistic model for the atmosphere. To claim you do is fraudulent.

Thank you for pointing that you're an academic. After all, academics never push their ideologies as science do they?

The science behind alleged "global warming" is far from settled. If you were the scientist you claim you are you would welcome any data that lead to a discovery instead you've already determined the outcome and look for anything that supports your agenda. THAT IS NOT SCIENCE. I would expect that you would know better, if you were a true scientist you would.

Reagan was elected in 1980. He was inaugurated in 1981.

IMO Republicans were so successful on economic and defense issues they got distracted and ramped up the culture war and forgot about economics.

The failure of military force? Iraq was doing OK when Bush left office and Obama promised to fix Afghanistan.

Gun rights not important? Have you been following the polls? Or gun and ammunition sales?

Here's the thing with global warming: do you walk the talk?

Because, if (a) you believe in anthropogenic GW and (b) you believe that it is a serious issue, then (C) you should be supporting climatological geo-engineering on the scale greater than the Manhattan Project.

If not C, then your positions on A and B are mere posturing. So, it is nice for Posner and Paul and everyone else to chide the GW deniers but, pragmatically, you are no better. Posner's content-free, program-bereft embrace is worthless. But, it makes him feel better about himself and superior to others. That's the first step to becoming a full-fledged liberal.

for the record, I am A, B and C.

The left has foisted on the US a nuclear energy policy based on a 1980s fictional movie (The China Syndrome) and a DDT policy on Africa based on a 1960s song (Big Yellow Taxi). And it's the right that's anti-science?

And of all the anti-science positions on the right, has any had a real cost to this country as much as the nuclear issue? Imagine what we would be paying for energy if we were getting most of it from nuclear sources? Imagine if the House of Saud hadn't been enriched by our oil purchases. Imagine if bin Laden hadn't been so rich on oil money?

Paul, as a climatologist and academician, you are wrong. And I say this as a conservative.

We don't get to pick and choose the reality in which we live. Mad-made climate change has been overblown at times, many of those leading the charge are wacky, but the evidence has long since closed the book on the debate.

So why is the heat content of the oceans declining? Isn't that a sign of cooling?

There is no doubt that mankind has an effect on climate. So does this individual man when he exhales CO2 and has a bout of flatulence. The question is: is it significant?

Some of the solar guys say that we are headed for a Maunder Minimum Little Ice Age. Funny thing is there seems to be a shortage of solar scientists on the IPCC. BTW solar output has been rising for the last 100 years and may in fact have been the highest ever for 11,000 years.

BTW any one who says the science is settled is not a scientist. The best a real scientist can say is that this is our best estimate for now. All the facts in evidence must support a theory for the theory to be true. All it takes is one bit of evidence that goes counter to a theory and a new theory is required?

So is it CO2 or the sun? We should have the answer in a few years. If it keeps getting cooler while CO2 rises we can say that what ever effect CO2 has it is not the main driver of climate.

"The words conservative intellectual is an oxymoron."

You think that is bad, try on liberal economist.

Anonymous: The "conservatives" HAD a chance to "stand athwart history" and yell "STOP" several times. When Reagan got in, I shrugged and HOPED he would wring out government excess, but, alas! no such thing happened. Bush Sr did shout "No New Taxes" but of course with continued nation tanking deficits back to back ended up having to increase taxes.

As you know Bush Jr ran on the same narrative but once in with Repubs holding ALL of the gavels went ahead and set THE post-WWII record for the expansion of government, the increase in spending, and even much larger deficits than were run up during Reagan-Bush. One guesses that any future cries of "STOP" will be taken with a grain of sand? and then some?

Global warming has occurred, but the policies advocated by the Left would only reduce American living standards, with no serious reduction in the harm from climate change.

There have been no serious cost-benefit analysis that show the benefits of severe carbon capping and energy restriction are worth the costs. You have reports like the Stern Report that use 0% discount rates, which is preposterous, not to mention wildly high cost estimates.

If the goal is to maximize human welfare, then we should try to grow the economy as fast as possible, and use the resulting wealth to ameliorate the effects of climate change if and when they happen.

As it is, the environmental movement is basically a group of rich Western elites imposing massive costs on the global poor and middle classes to assuage their "green" religious guilt.

The environmental movement -- in their calls for drastic, harmful action -- have long ago abandoned intellect for emotion, passion, and religiosity. Their zeal to prevent cost-benefit analysis from even being performed simply highlights their religious fervor.

Thanks to M. Simon,EBJ, Anonymous and all the others like them. As a liberal I can't help but be thrilled at the way you are pushing the GOP to irrelevance. Enjoy your stay in the wilderness. Watch out for the bears!

Judge Posner:

I have never agreed with you on social issues, religion or hostility to originalism, properly understood, but this article is dead on. Just reading the names of the folks who used to lead the mind of the right, and those that do so now requires assent to your premise and conclusion.

I think you understimate one thing however. Liberalism is intellectually pretty dead too. Name the giants of liberalism and who matches them now? Our universities are not what they were before the 60's. Crisp, rigorous thought unafraid to go anywhere is not encouraged by the present state of academia. Liberalism is politically ascendant but is it vibrant? Intellectually powerful? Does it seem fresh and likely to solve problems? Not to me.

Speaking as someone who thinks we can't have abortion as a constitutional right and long maintain liberty, that second amendment rights have been too long neglected, and that defense is more important than income transfers and that if we don't use originalism we don't have Constitutional government I just wanted to chime in that this was spot on as some people have responded, as you could have predicted, emotionally.

Best

JJV

I agree with much of what Judge Posner says. But with all due respect I think he is quite wrong about "global warming." I am data-driven, and I search a diverse space for that data. And increasingly I see strong evidence that AGW is, as Pauli said, "not even wrong." It's essentially unfalsifiable, thus not science at all.
This does not detract from the main points made by Judge Posner. The conservative movement is, in intellectual/philosophical terms, a beater. Who will repair it, with strong arguments about the essential virtue of actions modeled around individual decision-makers seeking knowledge to support their own best interests? It should be fairly easy: I fail to see the logic or appeal of a "collective justice" mindset, except as a way to excuse lazy and sentimental thinking.

"I saw no need for the estate tax to be abolished, marginal personal-income tax rates further reduced, the government shrunk, pragmatism in constitutional law jettisoned in favor of "originalism," the rights of gun owners enlarged, our military posture strengthened, the rise of homosexual rights resisted, or the role of religion in the public sphere expanded."

That pretty much sums it up: Posner is not a conservative. And since he styles himself an intellectual, he therefore concludes that that which he is not (conservative), cannot be what he thinks he is (intellectual).

Go join Peggy Noonan in your pity party Posner. What you really are, more than anything else, is irrelevant.

For all of you who seemed to be confused about conservative ideals in this day and age, i'll try to make it real simple. GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GET A JOB!! I've been a janitor, a construction site cleaner, a semi-conductor manufacturer, a sailor, and a drunk. I worked two jobs to put myself through college. I was raised, as were my two older brothers, by a single mother when my alcoholic father ran out on us. She taught us the value of a dollar and hard work. Those are two CORE principles of conservativism. I have never expected or wanted anyone to pay my way for anything.

Will said:
"Furthermore, there is no obvious way why we should consider human life more valuable than any other life. If killing those cells in utero is so wrong, why are antibacterial hand soaps not murder?"

As someone who supports legal first term abortion as a sometime arguably 'lesser of two evils' thing (but neither partial birth nor abortions for minors w/o parental consent-- barring special circumstances of course)...

That has got be the *stupidest* comment I've read since the first of the year. At least.

Bacteria aren't on the path to becoming human beings.

Forgetting legal or philosophical questions of 'personhood', much less any crap about a 'soul', the scientific fact is that fertilization is when
the then one-celled human embryo (zygote) acquires its own complete and distinct human genetic identity. Barring serious defects or bad luck, it *will* become a human being, a 'person'.

Even if that embryo is not yet a 'person' on par with its mother, it is absolutely more worthy of consideration in the ethical calculus than your bacterium (or human skin cells).

Religion has *nothing* to do with it.

Feh, this is oy kids these dayz nonsense, dressed up in the rationalization that lets so many intellectuals be in surprisingly deep denial about their own very ordinary human instincts.

Naturally, the intellectual movement that crested at the time of your own intellectual maturity seemed Right And True, Camelot itself, and what the youngsters who came after it did with their inheritance seems myopic and emotional. You can read the retirement writings of Thomas Jefferson and hear the exact same thing. Heck, my father said similar things when he reached 70s.

Ah yes, back in the Golden Age, when men were men.

For my money, to the extent there has been any reduction in the influence of conservatism, it springs from three very simple and broad causes: (1) economic success; there hasn't been any government-caused economic trainwreck in a good quarter-century. People forget, and start to take the golden eggs for granted, start wondering whether we can't cook the goose and have her for dinner, too; (2) immigration; historically, the US has turned left whenever it has a big bolus of immigration, especially lower-class unskilled laborer immigration. Don't see why the latest influx from south o' the border should be different; (3) productivity increases fueled by the Internet; again, historically, steep productivity increases (e.g. caused by railroads in the 1870s) have been quite disruptive, as they significantly broaden the gap between haves and have-nots (or get-its and left-behinds), and otherwise disrupt widespread assumptions and social mythology about how things work, how you get ahead, what's fair and what's not, et cetera. The Internet has produced a significant surge in American productivity since the 90s, industries have been abruptly killed and just as abruptly created, modes of social discourse and intercourse have disappeared and been created, et cetera. Is it any wonder this is as disruptive as industrialization in the 1890s? Is it any wonder people temporarily lose respect for the Old Ways, when they don't seem to be protecting against the unpleasant side effects of the New Tech?

Anyway, if you're looking to explain broad social changes, you should look at broad social movements, not the accidents of what this or that prominent man has said, or left unsaid.

Finally, I myself doubt conservatism is in any serious trouble. I think the liberalism of the younger generation -- which is entirely what the current liberal fetish rests on -- is fickle, shallow. They're used to a surprising level of personal freedom, and are likely very unwilling to put up with the bonds collectivism inevitably imposes. A good stiff bout of inflation, a whopping new tax to fund health-care that bites 40% more of their paychecks, and I suspect that liberalism will flip over almost instantly.

I give the Obama bubble about the same lifespan as the Pet Rock. You know what they say, up like a rocket, down like a stick. Sell your commemorative T-shirts on eBay before next January, is my investment advice.

The "denial of global warming" mantra is a demonstration of an ignorance of science and it's history. Piltdown man, rejection of plate tectonics, and Eugenics are all examples of where the "consensus" was dead wrong. Eugenics, like global warming, is further plagued by the timeless tendency of humans to buy into the end of the world scenarios.

If anyone has any doubt that Posner is out of touch, observe his out-of-hand rejection of the hugely successful, and nowadays hugely popular, 2nd Amendment movement. Far from being anti-intellectual, this is a movement based on very deep--and often very difficult--research. Scholars like Clayton Cramer and Dave Kopel have gone through musty court records from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and have compiled comprehensive studies to prove, beyond a doubt--to such a degree that even Lawrence Tribe has had to admit it--that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. They have proved that there is no positive correlation between guns and crime; they have proved that Bellesiles' book ARMING AMERICA was based entirely on fraudulent evidence, forcing him to relinquish the prize he won for the book; they have dug into the segregationist origins of gun control. Not exactly anti-intellectual there.

Of course, they haven't stopped at intellectualism. They have won public support for their concealed carry laws and the Heller decision, and have made the Democrats into a "me-too" party on the gun rights issue.

This is an issue that unites farmers with construction workers, hillbillies with non-gun-owning libertarian lawyers, hunters with young professional women wanting to avoid rape, Republicans with Democrats (even some liberals), and Christian fundamentalists with open-minded gays. Yet Posner doesn't even give a full sentence worth of respect to this civil rights movement of the '90's and '00's.

Since gun rights is generally (although not entirely accurately) considered a conservative movement, it would be hard to make a case that the conservative movement is anywhere near dead on this issue. And since the people, such as Posner, who claim that conservatism is in decline also seem oblivious about the remarkable, and very hard-fought, 2nd Amendment movement, I would have to conclude that their opinions are worth very little.

Tell you what, though: when Republican politicians in the majority of states seek out the endorsement of the Brady Bunch, THEN we'll talk about conservatism's decline.

Birdwin: Thanks for the thoughtful response. Agreed, I'm SURE that boomer demographics have influenced everything from fashion to politics.

The somewhat puzzling thing is that numerically they don't seem to have voted in their self-interest. What does seem true is that a small wealthier subset has voted and lobbied heavily to enhance their benefits. Examples abound such as taking the mortgage interest deduction once targeted at modest home up to include estates and vacation homes, and that most government benefits are "deductions" such that the wealthy get larger subsidies for interest deductions, college cost, health insurance, etc.

And yes, it does seem that boomers were selfish in both the "ME" sense of their own era as compared to what seems to be an emerging community sense of the "milleniums" (though they may have already sensed that's about the only chance left for them) and the "I'm spending my grandkids inheritance" sense. "Ahh, yes a splendid little war and I am willing to invest in a $1.99 Support the Troops decal, but am ENTITLED to MY tax break.

Retirement? Ha! I'm hoping "they/me" get to retire, but suspect that the combo of far too little savings, few defined benefit retirement programs and, hopefully, overall better health will mean folks working into their 70's and beyond. Looking back it seems professionals often work into their latter years, while its worn out tradesmen and factory workers headed for a rocking chair. I don't see the boomers as rocking chair material, even if they might be able to afford it.

Estate taxes? Hmm, another "ME" issue? Along with those who put the estate tax in place I see the main benefit as that of putting a dent in family fortunes and the political power that comes with them. Seems to me that a taxfree $3.5 million, an Ivy education and over half of the rest of the pile ought to be enough to give even the most indolent of trust funders a fine start in life. Though the estate tax isn't a huge money raiser would it be more fair to add that burden to those working for a living and trying to save for a modest estate of their own?

I generally agree with your comments on the 30 somethings who are largely disengaged from "government". I guess they KNOW that Congress no longer represents those who don't have slick K-street lobbyists. And, rightly or not, I think the "youth vote" in this election had much to do with regaining "clout". The beast may have been awakened!

Yes, the younger and poorer generation has been subsidized. The middle class as you say by Pops while the lower income folk get token wages from the likes of Walmart with perhaps nearly a matching amount from one or a combo of government subsidies. I think (KNOW) this is a distortion and NOT healthy; would rather see a substantially higher min wage and more collective bargaining to bring wages more in line with productivity. Why the beleagured tax payer should have to subsidize the payroll of the wealthiest corporation in history is beyond me!

Hard to know what the next generation will favor. I guess the scope of government would, rationally, be measured in terms of getting fair value, so if taxes were higher but we had quality universal H/C for a share of GDP more in keeping with that of Germany and France with the concept of medical bankruptcies behind us, I suppose it would sell OK.

Ha, I conclude, like Pogo what "We have seen the enemy and he is us" as what do the budget cutters really want to cut? Are they willing to go after the big chunks?

Military spending and local pork? Home interest deduction? So far, I've not seen "budget cutters" willing to take a bite out of any of the big stuff, and there is little to be done about interest on our massive debt but to try to get back to balance and let the debt and its service payments shrink by comparison to a growing GDP.

Up a blind canyon with little room to maneuver?

If anyone has any doubt that Posner is out of touch, observe his out-of-hand rejection of the hugely successful, and nowadays hugely popular, 2nd Amendment movement. Far from being anti-intellectual, this is a movement based on very deep--and often very difficult--research. Scholars like Clayton Cramer and Dave Kopel have gone through musty court records from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and have compiled comprehensive studies to prove, beyond a doubt--to such a degree that even Lawrence Tribe has had to admit it--that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. They have proved that there is no positive correlation between guns and crime; they have proved that Bellesiles' book ARMING AMERICA was based entirely on fraudulent evidence, forcing him to relinquish the prize he won for the book; they have dug into the segregationist origins of gun control. Not exactly anti-intellectual there.

Of course, they haven't stopped at intellectualism. They have won public support for their concealed carry laws and the Heller decision, and have made the Democrats into a "me-too" party on the gun rights issue.

This is an issue that unites farmers with construction workers, hillbillies with non-gun-owning libertarian lawyers, hunters with young professional women wanting to avoid rape, Republicans with Democrats (even some liberals), and Christian fundamentalists with open-minded gays. Yet Posner doesn't even give a full sentence worth of respect to this civil rights movement of the '90's and '00's.

Since gun rights is generally (although not entirely accurately) considered a conservative movement, it would be hard to make a case that the conservative movement is anywhere near dead on this issue. And since the people, such as Posner, who claim that conservatism is in decline also seem oblivious about the remarkable, and very hard-fought, 2nd Amendment movement, I would have to conclude that their opinions are worth very little.

Tell you what, though: when Republican politicians in the majority of states seek out the endorsement of the Brady Bunch, THEN we'll talk about conservatism's decline.

Anonymous: The "conservatives" HAD a chance to "stand athwart history" and yell "STOP" several times. When Reagan got in, I shrugged and HOPED he would wring out government excess, but, alas! no such thing happened. Bush Sr did shout "No New Taxes" but of course with continued nation tanking deficits back to back ended up having to increase taxes.

As you know Bush Jr ran on the same narrative but once in with Repubs holding ALL of the gavels went ahead and set THE post-WWII record for the expansion of government, the increase in spending, and even much larger deficits than were run up during Reagan-Bush. One guesses that any future cries of "STOP" will be taken with a grain of sand? and then some?

Global warming, a "fact"? But even its most ardent boosters have implicitly abandoned that claim; the push is now about "climate change," thus dodging the inconvenience of evidence that shows, if anything, mild global cooling. But that won't work; all the hysteria about "carbon footprints" and "cap and trade" can only be justified if carbon dioxide causes climactic warming (and if a few other unlikely assumptions are true as well). Obviously, global cooling, the flip side of "climate change," isn't a function of too much atmospheric carbon dioxide. If examined logically, the leftist dream of control of all industry and transportation in the name of exhaust gas control simply falls flat.

I'll put my formal scientific degrees up against anybody posting here. My own measurements - I have been following the question of climate change for about four decades - show without question that the "Global Warming" crisis has little more intellectual gravitas than the idea that the earth is flat.

I don't know exactly what a "conservative" is. No more than I know what a "liberal" is these days. I can easily reduce either concept to caricature, but that's not much help. But I suspect that whatever a conservative is, the author of this column isn't one.

The tone of this text is at minimum irresponsible(lack of better word since i am not an english speaker) at worse seems it came from a teenager.

To Kill- it needs to be a motive. A strong motive. Not being fashionable, not to be upset by a children IS NOT A VALID MOTIV to kill a human being. That is a murder.

Global Warming - professor shows is complete lack of understanding about Science and what is science.
There is no way any person, team can say what is happening and by what causes in climate. There is no Historical reliable data and there is no reliable data even today and there is no way to process the enormous amout of information even if we could weight that information and would know its extents.

I think this shows once more the fall of Academics. The damage this kind of behavior would makes, will be scary.

The tone of this text is at minimum irresponsible(lack of better word since i am not an english speaker) at worse seems it came from a teenager.

To Kill- it needs to be a motive. A strong motive. Not being fashionable, not to be upset by a children IS NOT A VALID MOTIV to kill a human being. That is a murder.

Global Warming - professor shows is complete lack of understanding about Science and what is science.
There is no way any person, team can say what is happening and by what causes in climate. There is no Historical reliable data and there is no reliable data even today and there is no way to process the enormous amout of information even if we could weight that information and would know its extents.

I think this shows once more the fall of Academics. The damage this kind of behavior would makes, will be scary.

As a research oceanographer for more than 40 years, I can state unequivocally, with no hesitation, that global warming is very, very real. It is a simple, observed fact. Period. The physics, which I in fact do understand, dictate that humans have played a role, if not perhaps as the sole cause, then at the very least in strongly accentuating it. I've gone into details on blog posts too many times to bother doing it again: it's like arguing religion with the true believers, and there is just no point. I will only state that it takes an amazing leap of faith to disavow the more than 95% of the global earth sciences community that has spent their lives studying the global climate system and pretty much does understand what is going on. Whatever else Becker and Posner may have said, they are dead on in their statement that global warming deniers are substituting will for intellect.

Anonymous. At least learn how to spell your president's name. It's Barack, not "Barrack."

Even liberals agree that a fetus is a fully human person. The question is not whether the fetus has a right to life (of course it does), but rather, does it have the right to use the woman's body in order to sustain that right? Has the woman, through engaging in sexual intercourse, consented use of her womb to the fetus?

Your posts are distracting at best, crippling to the Pro-Life movement at worst.

There is an intelligent debate over consent with respect to abortion; stop muddling it with your asinine, "anonymous" ramblings.

^

This was not serious, right? It can't be, it is too absurd. A fetus needs the *permission* of the woman's uterus (who engaged in procreation) to sustain life? What does the fetus do? Hire an attorney? If a woman does not want their uterus *inconvenienced*, they should remove it. Period. Too bad the partial-birth abortion fetus' didn't have a voice, but they ARE viable human beings. I know. We just celebrated my great niece's 3rd birthday, after being taken by c-section at 23 weeks, as my niece was succombing to cancer. You'd like her. Really.

Prof. Posner decries, inter alia, what he perceives to be unwarranted emphasis on "emotional and religious" issues such as abortion. I would agree with him that abortion is an emotional issue: however, I would take issue with the notion that it is inherently "religious" in nature. Now it is true that religious people inclining towards the orthodox interpretation of their faith typically oppose abortion and invoke theological grounds for their opposition. However, one can take God and theological arguments entirely out of the equation: one is still left with the problem of whether it is justifiable to kill a fellow member of the species _homo sapiens_ who is in a different developmental stage--that of the zygote and then the embryo--than that of the adult. Such an issue is _not_ inherently a religious issue but one of human rights: it _is_ emotional because it is a foundational, life-and-death matter that, as currently treated in the United States, sheds a rather sinister light upon the moral quality of the polity in which we live. I fear that in such foundational matters, the Pragmatism that Prof. Posner espouses is far too thin a philosophy to offer adequate guidance.

When did Hayek or Friedman become conservatives? Just because the conservative movement borrowed some of their ideas does not make them conservatives. If you haven't read it I suggest reading Hayek's Why I am not a Conservative.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/hayek1.html

"By the end of the Clinton administration, I was content to celebrate the triumph of conservatism as I understood it, and had no desire for other than incremental changes in the economic and social structure of the United States."

Then you are joined at the hip to the "DC GOP" and are part an parcel of why there was so little enthusiasm for beating the Dems in spite of the ridiculousness of their candidate--we couldn't get much better out of the R's. The best I expected out of McCain was half the damage I've seen Obama do so far.

"I saw no need for the estate tax to be abolished"

See the above.

"marginal personal-income tax rates further reduced"

See the above. There should be one rate, and at most one paying bracket.

"the government shrunk"

See the above.

"pragmatism in constitutional law jettisoned in favor of "originalism"

See the above, also originalism is prudent, which is a close enough analog to be pragmatic.

"the rights of gun owners enlarged"

See the above. Also, what other parts of the law do you want to ignore?

"our military posture strengthened"

See the above.

"the rise of homosexual rights resisted"

They already have human rights, why should they get extra?

"or the role of religion in the public sphere expanded"

Expansion is not desired, it's the forcible repression of individual rights of conscience/1st amendment rights which is to be ended. See the above.

"All these became causes embraced by the new conservatism that crested with the reelection of Bush in 2004"

And the biggest problem the DC GOP had is that it didn't really agree with actual the GOP platform. See the above.

"My theme is the intellectual decline of conservatism it is notable that the policies of the new conservatism are powered largely by emotion and religion and have for the most part weak intellectual groundings."

These policies have impeccable intellectual grounding. Hayek, Bastiat, Jefferson, Hamilton, Mason, I could go on but there would be no point--you don't believe that government is best which governs least, you don't believe markets produce better results with less government interference. You reject what is best about America and it's revolution and it's constitution. Don't say I'm a fool, I just read the words you wrote, and that is their import.

"That the policies are weak in conception, have largely failed in execution, and are political flops is therefore unsurprising. The major blows to conservatism, culminating in the election and programs of Obama, have been fourfold: the failure of military force to achieve U.S. foreign policy objectives"

In what fashion have they failed? Did you expect the evolution of generations to be accelerated and achieved in half decade? If this is what you desired and thought would be had, you were a fool. This is the long war, it will require not less than a generation's span, and it's effects not seen in full for three or four. I see no failures here but what opportunities for our enemies the Obama administration's geopolitical timidity and stupidity in dealing with the economic crisis have created.

"as in the denial of global warming"

If you mean anthropomorphic Global Warming (TM), which we are supposedly causing, there is no evidence for it which can be distinguished from the noise in the signal. The models for it cannot reconstruct the past from past data, and they haven't even agreed on what the data is. In fact the data is such a moving target, changes to the data are the main reason they have to keep on tweaking their models so they still show AGW exists.

"the use of religious criteria in the selection of public officials"

Name the religious test so employed.

"the neglect of management and expertise in government"

What, we haven't now proved we could do worse? What actual benchmarks exist which were no in your eyes met? With an administration staffed by people drafted at random, we could better than the Obama administration. And we will do better still once we shrug off the DC GOP.

"a continued preoccupation with abortion"

Right, Roe v Wade suddenly makes sense to you!? It may well be that there is little enough popular support for the notion it is always murder, but there is a great deal of support for the notion it is always regrettable and always a homicide in the third and likely the second trimester. See the above.

"and fiscal incontinence in the form of massive budget deficits"

Who, exactly, ever said Bush was fiscally conservative, as opposed to his just being the best we could get out of the DC GOP? See the above.

"the Medicare drug plan"

I never heard anyone claim it was conservative, did you? I am hearing it is an example of less intrusive and more effective (and gasp, sparing of market forces) than most welfare programs.

"excessive foreign borrowing"

See the above.

"asset-price inflation"

See the above, and if you are meaning housing, the Dems did have something to do with that.

"By the fall of 2008, the face of the Republican Party had become Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Conservative intellectuals had no party."

Why complain? From what you've said, you are no conservative and you have a party--Obama's in charge of it.

Joe the Plumber asked a better question of Obama, eliciting a more revealing and truthful response--"spread the wealth around"--than did the media or McCain either one. Palin has been a more fiscally conservative officeholder than almost any in the current GOP, we certainly would have done worse on that score in McCain--oh he of the bailout; and if she has personally extreme religious views, there is no evidence of it in her policies. If you quibble, name that evidence.

Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp

I wonder if Posner realizes just what a tiny minority he's in on gun control. It has actually gotten to the point where you can't really call guns a "controversial" issue any more, at least not if by "controversial" you mean one with even a remotely even divide. Yet Posner seems to imply that gun rights advocates not only are in the minority, but that they are so unpopular that they hurt the GOP--a party considerably less popular than the National Rifle Association.

Of course, it's also possible that he knows damned well he's in the minority, and is desperately trying to lie in order to obscure that fact. Wouldn't want one of those "common" people Posner's screwed over to finally decide he's got nothing to lose, now would we?

Why are you so mad at Joe the Plumber, Posner? As a supposed intellectual, aren't you supposed to welcome intelligent questions?

But not from commoners, I suppose.

It would have been better to pick on creationism instead of AGW(Anthropogenic global warming) as an example of anti-intellectualism.

The global temperature has gone up and down in the past, and will no doubt continue to do so in the future. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but additional CO2 has exponentially diminishing returns in its heat trapping effect. The posited positive feedback effect from water vapor that underlies AGW cannot possibly exist or the Earth would have long ago raced away to a temperature extreme. The Earth in the past has had higher and lower amounts of atmospheric CO2 than it does today, and higher and lower temperatures. Anthropogenic global warming is a lie.

"I sense intellectual deterioration of the once-vital conservative movement in the United States."

Boy, judge, you don't miss a trick, do you.

The essential problem faced by the conservative movement is that it doesn't have a positive product to sell. Conservatives spend most all of their time in opposition mode, trying to obstruct the political initiatives advanced by the liberals. Thus, conservatives are cast as dour types who are the Party of No. Whether or not one likes the various programs proposed by Obama, he can claim to be doing something affirmative about the assortment of challenges facing the nation, while his conservative opposition stands by, dour and grumbling, and irrelevant.

To make matters worse, we are in the middle of a catastrophic economic collapse brought on by the failure of a conservative government to properly monitor and regulate the financial industry. It will be a very, very long time before the electorate feels comfortable giving the reins of power back to the conservatives.

I agree conservatism peaked around 2001. It's a fact that more voters wanted Gore to be President than Bush. 911 caused many to naturally rally around their President, and this delayed the decline of the GOP for a while.

Conservatives don't understand what a big tent is any more. The religious right say THEY are the tent. The libertarians say THEY are the tent. The de facto Republican leader Limbaugh says HE defines the tent. These tents don't completely overlap!

Normally I find what you write intelligent and compelling. This sounds like something David Brooks would write. You seem to imply that vibrant intellectual cnservatism partially implemented is the ideal state. Don't the ideas of Hayek and Friedman clealy show that the US of early 1990s is far from an ideal state?

I love it. Any mention of Global Warming and the Flat Earth Society shows up in force. The science haters of America have to get their two cents worth in on when life starts and who's warming up the planet! Face it Republisaurs, you're out of ideas. Joe the Plumber has left your party! That means all the people with an I.Q. at or near room temperature have moved on. Someone needs to tell Rush Limbaugh to take more Oxy-Contyn so he can deal with the new reality.

"there are few comments about core values and many about the wedge issues of yester-decades, abortion, and the new talk radio led denialism of global warming and man-caused GW."

It's a little difficult to have lofty, Buckleyesque discussions about "core values" when the maniacs in power are taxing our incomes to oblivion, strangling our economy with nonsensical ecological legislation, and spending our future to create an impossibly utopian society.

Conservatism has taken a battering in recent times, no question. But I have faith that at some point, a majority of people may once again realize that low taxes, limited government, personal liberty and individual responsibility may become more than just wishful thinking.

Oh, and by the way: I, as a one-time statistician, might take the climate change proponents more seriously if their predictive data models were not completely and utterly worthless, if not mendacious.

Because denying anthropogenic global warming is no longer scientifically tenable. It is barely a notch above evolution denial. This is Posner's point.

That is soooo 2003.

We're 10 years into a 30 year cooling cycle based on recent historical solar cycles. So far the evidence supports the solar theories, while contradicting the CO2 based models. The warming the CO2 models all predict simply isn't materializing.

Besides, is Freeman Dyson a "non-intellectual"?

Conservatism has to die, to make way for libertariansm. I am an economist and I disagree with large parts of your article (not with the thesis that the conservative movement got one in the face in 2008). I am actually surprised that you, as an economist did not support a further reform of the federal government. A 3.4 trillion dollar budget is 3 trillion dollars of tyranny and thievery and 400 billion of useful projects (mostly army).

You say that US failed in its foreign policy objectives. I think only time will tell. Just as around 400 BC it seemed that Sparta was the ruler of the Greek civilization.

The fact that you didn't notice that GW is a scam actually soils your reputation as thinker. Just because some government subsidized professors write this junk on GW doesn't make it so, just as the army of Catholic priests couldn't make the sun revolve around the earth (yes, Galileo and Copernicus were right).

You claim that [..] the neglect of management and expertise in government - it happens with all governments. When did you see a well managed government program?

As for your other points you made in the paragraph, you are mostly right.

However, just because some morons think (wrongly) that the bete noire of keinsianism should be revived don't make it a good policy. Those trillions of dollars in freshly printed notes and the trillions of future deficits that will accompany the next stagflation will make people shake their heads in shame for supporting the comrade who had it (the stagflation) in store for unsuspecting (or better yet misinformed) electorate.

Abortion is murder. And I'm in favor of it.

Kim maintains:

"It's a little difficult to have lofty, Buckleyesque discussions about "core values" when the maniacs in power are taxing our incomes to oblivion, strangling our economy with nonsensical ecological legislation, and spending our future to create an impossibly utopian society."

........ yet taxes are lower than they were in most of our post war history and much too low if favor a huge military along with a bit of war making now and the. Perhaps....... a far less costly military-industrial complex would be a good idea when we've so few enemies of great military power. Might be something of a safeguard too for being hastily conned into unjustified warmaking too.

Hmmm, I wonder if there are substantial "nonsensical ecological legislation" you think it important to roll back?

My take on the current spending is not that it's "spending our future for an impossibly Utopian future, but simply what Keynesian spurring we can "afford" with hopes only of muddling through somehow.

BTW were you one of the seemingly few outspoken critics of the right as Bush and the Republican majority set the post war record for spending, before, the sole source Haliburton bills began to arrive?

"I sense intellectual deterioration of the once-vital conservative movement in the United States."

I sense intellectual deterioration of the once-vital Richard Posner. How else to explain his indisputably incorrect labeling of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, and F. A. Hayek conservative? (They were libertarians.) And how else to explain his exaggeration of conservative policy success?

The "let's get more data" climate partisans tend to be the same people who mock the climate scientists - you know, the same scientists who ARE getting more data.

It's really a question of how much and how far a political party bows to populism. Populism is driven by the propensity of our innate sense of folk economics to inform our political decision-making, and it creates in the public conversation a strong tendency to favour State-led solutions. The State must forever be seen to be "doing something" about this or that.

Economics tells us that this "doing something" is often unnecessary. And not just economics, but "softer" sciences like psychology (a traditionally "liberal" domain) also tell us that freedom in the moral domain is, on the whole, beneficial to growth.

To the extent a political party has intelligent people motivated to participate in it, such people will hearken to what the sciences tell us (they being our best shot at descriptions of "what is").

To the extent that a scientific understanding of the world trumps evolved Folk X understandings, policies driven by scientific understanding will tend to feel intuitively odd to most people - will deviate from "the Centre".

What happened with "conservatism" was that the attempt to garner votes with religious people reduced the proportion of science-based intellectuals. The makeup of "conservatism" started to deviate less and less from populism in the direction of (economic) science-grounded policy-making. Intellectuals were simply "bred out", as their relative proportion in the demography shrunk. The party retreated back to populism, back to the "Centre", back to the idea that the State should be seen to be "doing something" about this and that.

I find it funny and sad. There is not even a way to take a temperature to earth. The Argo oceanic buoys are not enough and even then what they tell us is a drop in temperature:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/06/the-global-warming-hypothesis-and-ocean-heat/#more-7646

Below is a damning report into land sensors status and that is only in US:
www.surfacestations.org

The Global-Eugenics movement should read: Leopardi XXXIX chapter.Written in 1800's:

http://www.leopardi.it/pensieri.php
--------------------------------------------
There is no Historic data and reliability to reach any conclusion. And arrogance, peer pressure and media ideological drive is what makes the Global Warming bandwagon like Eugenics in 20-30's.

Democrat, Conservative; if you check the internet archive for each parties website where they list the 50 or so campaign policies(abortion, civil rights, etc), you're going to find they were both running the same big picture but all the small things that don't mean anything long-term, like environmentalism, tax policy, and abortion (1960's teenage pregnancy was an expectation; now, due to our failed schools, it's abhorring.) are touted in between those. John Kerry and Bush in 2004 ran practically the same platform.



We do have a real constitutional conservative movement brewing.



http://tampabayinformer.com/Government/Government/Ron-Paul-2008.html



The problem is the current government thinks those conservatives, who haven't participated in the government for ages, are terrorists (MIAC reports; read em). Not everyone has sly problem-resolution skills and some people do stupid crap but hey. Those conservatives are saying basically 90% of these campaign platforms are useless trash and we might as well vote for someone who's going to make a difference; some of them acted on that which is why Ron Paul got support and next election I think he's going to get a lot more. People are organizing political websites to track the government over the long-term as well since the mass media and scientific corpus of corporate america won't do it for us. As time goes on, and society breaks down, and personal ruin sets in, you're going to notice people buying these stories less and less as the oligarchy tries to institute a world-wide tyranny.



That's why gun sales are off the charts. The conservatives have only been disparaged and we all know where that leads unfortunately. Lets hope this government breaks down to the point of incompetence and is reconstituted by good people before that happens.

The core of the conservative movement was a belief in individual liberty as the source of all creativity in society, and the role of limited government to set the conditions for that to occur. That means low taxation and a strong belief in the self-regulatory powers of a market economy based on private property and the rule of law.

But in a special-interest driven political system, such as our version of democracy, it is never in the interest of politicians to promote that agenda, except when the counter-current drives us too far to the left, as it did under Johnson and Carter. Then conservatism becomes not just a positive force -- it becomes a strong force of revenge and destruction of the evils wrought by the triumphs of leftist willpower. Conservatism was and is an antidote to excessive liberal interventionism. As a political agenda in a political system constructed, by politicians, to promote active government, it does not work well in good times. Then it has to lie dormant, and wait for another spring.

And now, in bad times, conservatism is painted into a corner as the cause and source of market breakdowns. We who don't believe that story have to create a better one. But, for now, we have to wait for the excesses of liberal activism to prove, once again, the enduring values of individual liberty and limited government.

The problem for the conservative movement is that it lost out to the politics of the day. Republicans, usurping the conservative label, had to build a winning coalition -- enter Rove and, through him, Christians into politics. It worked for a while, as a political strategy wishing for majority status, but it has damaged the conservative brand, perhaps for a long time. Republicans are now just another activist, pro-government party.

Inidividual liberty in economic matters is essential to our future well-being, and cannot be destroyed for it is the source of all productive creativity. The desire for personal freedom is in our heart and soul, and it is our history. Barak Obama and his class-warfare, hard core Chicago-style politicking will not break that will. Intellectual conservatism is on the back-bench, for now, but as an enduring, fundamental philosophy, it will rise again. It will never die. Not even the current crop of pathetic Republicans will be able to kill it.

By the way, Global Warming has indeed happened. But anthropogenic causes have not been proven scientifically. Nor has any viable political agenda to counteract Global Warming been put forth -- all they are doing is tinkering at the edges. And even the facts of warming are no longer so certain, which is why the climate-activists nowadays talk of Climate Change instead of Global Warming. You see, whether it is cooling, warming, unstable weather patterns, hurricanes, droughts, floods, tsunamis, or any other climate plague, the answer is that it is Capitalism that caused it. Oh, bother all of that. As the Brazilians say in a wonderful expression when they find something outrageous: Ooh, canca (can't get the cedille in there, unfortunately) a minha beleza!

So, hang in there, and wait. Let outrageous activism run its course, and true conservatism shall rise again. But it may be a long winter of discontent before that happens.

Interesting read. The idea that the republican party has become the party of Palin and Joe the plumber is exactly right and sums up very well the current situation.

I am not american, but I consider myself a conservative, for what it's worth here are the things that I can't stand in the republican party today: its stance on abortion, evolution, global warming and his tax and military obsessions. Frankly, the ideas put forward by this party have become a joke.

I think unless the party starts moving out of these positions, it will stay in the minority for a long long time, which is a shame.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x59wNGHe6iI

Barack Obama says Government is the solution to everything. It is obvious which political revolution is on the horizon.

Empty campaign slogans like "HOPE and CHANGE" won't work now that Mr. Government has a track record that can be ripped apart. $10 trillion deficits, higher taxes, more carte blanche abortion, more war and military spending and nationalization are now on Obama's record. He won't be able to lie and get away with it in the next campaign the way he did in the last.

After Pelosi, Dodd, Reid, and some other hacks get voted out, Obama will be right behind them. This is the most irresponsible, abusive and corrupt government this nation has ever had.

Вот решил вам немного помочь и послал этот пост в социальные закладки. Очень надеюсь ваш рейтинг возрастет.

I think that the "excesses" of the Johnson administration, excluding the Vietnam War,* were not the programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, etc., but rather that people found black people moving into their neighborhoods.

Richard Nixon continued and expanded these programs, but did not receive the same backlash, because he had as a subtext that he would keep the black people in line.

*Yes, I know that saying,"excluding the Vietnam War," is a lot like saying, "Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play."

Let's change the name from consrvative to "cautios" based on an "intellectual approach" of learning from history, incentivising individual learning and responsibility and self reliance. Adopt the view that the role of the central government is to provide security and safety within and without, preserve the integrity of the currency and to provide for the WEAKEST in the society. It is distinctly NOT to RUN the economy at the micro level, not to remain in office in perpetuity by buying votes through promises to provide everything to everyone at the expense of a diminishing few

The thing that amazes me most is that what happens to a society is the sum of individual actions taken in response to government actions and that most folks don't recognize that. It takes time to develop but it will happen and that is the reason to be "cautious"

I have my own plan about haw to survive in response to a government intent upon wrenching this country into a European style utopia and a public apparently looking forward to that. I am quite sure other folks do as well. The future of the country will depend on the sum of those individual responses and plans.

Many interesting points but my favorite are those on racism. Racism can never die because the Democratic party would no longer be able to keep and direct the minority vote here in the US. Plantation politics at it's best.
I agree that neither Palin nor Joe the Plumber should not necessarily be the faces of the Republican Party. The sad fact is after Reagan, there was no true conservative heir apparent. Clinton was put forward because the Democratic Party believed they couldn't beat moderate George Bush I. Conservatism has appeal only when the masses believe the man/woman claiming it is truly one. Bush II was never truly believe to be a conservative. We only hoped he wouldn't stray to far from it.
Alot of social change directed from the Government will happen in the next 4 years. President Soros is fully intent on making this happen. So the question will be how Americans feel about being American in 4 years. That is what the 1980 election was all about. Conservatives have 4 years to put something cohesive together.

Wonderful blog.

My concern is that the difference between now and 1964 is that the Republican Party has no intellectual base to form the ideas to re-energize the party. All the names you mention that were associated with the party are dead. There is no growing intellectual base in the Republican Party. Who is going to challenge the ideas of the President Obama and his solution of big government?

Ronald Reagan was so exciting because he and the intellectual movement made the Republican Party a party of ideas. But ideas don't just rise up from the ether. Who will articulate those ideas?

It seems with each year the Republican Party moves further to the populist social issues to the detriment of all else. The populist evangelicals denounce intellectuals of any stripe and seek to shout down any sort of complex reasoning.

Let's face it. Today Buckley would be ran out of the party on a rail. Barry Goldwater with his his social issue positions (founded on libertarian ideas of small government) would not win a single primary in the Republican Party.

So the biggest difference I see between 1964 to 2009 is the make-up of the party. In 1964 the party was at a low ebb, but the core of party was intellectually strong and full of fresh ideas. That meant they were ready to pounce when the Democrats failed. In 2009 the party is at a low ebb, but the key power brokers in the party are now anti-intellectual and committed to fighting battles of the past on social issues.

It took 16 comments for someone to link "conservative" to "racist". You people are slipping; this should have happened a lot sooner.

If you're going to use kindergarten insults, I'm going to use kindergarten comebacks: "Sticks and stones may break my bones...."

вы шутите...21 век на дворе, неужели нет ничего достойного внимания, как энциклопедия.Милые мои, вот нет снега в
гордах, это тоже тема и история, пересмотрите темы.Я почту просматриваю, мне шлют не пойми что, не знаю кто, столько мусора, может оно и нужно, но не в дневнике.Я так понимаю, дневник это часть твоей души.Нам дается право выбирать - пользуйтесь. А информация бесполезной не бывает

Too bad Mr. Posner fell for the Global Warming hoax. No one should ever, ever say science is settled.

Manmade global warming is a religion. Like many religions its purpose is to control people. The left couldn't get communism accepted to control the world so they now are trying this to get control of the energy supply.

For thousands of years priests have been telling people that weather was their punishment and they must sacrifice to protect themselves.

We don't know enough about climate to sacrifice our economy to this fantasy. But they sure have done a good job fooling people.

The best example I've heard is that if the atmosphere was a 100 story building then the amount of C)2 would be equal to the tiles on the first floor and the manmade part would be the glue under the tiles. How much affect could that have?

And the nonpartisan OMB's leaked report says it's not proven:

http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/05/12/omb-memo-raises-doubts-about-epa-findings/

Republicans- The party of Hypocrites.

Hypocrite: A person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

Less Govt. Say hello to Homeland Security.

Freedom and Liberty. Say hello to Wiretapping and the Patriot Act.

Your economic policies have been a total failure.
You need to get some new ones.

We've lost 5 million jobs in the last year.
History shows the country does much better financially under Dems anyway.

We have been in Iraq for 6 years.

I was told it was going to be a cakewalk.
I was told we would be welcomed as liberators.
I was told the Iraqi oil would pay for the war.

We were told nothing but lies by the GOP.

Instead of cleaning up the stain Clinton supposedly left on the WH the Republicans left office staining our entire country.

I wonder if Republicans get that the entire world celebrated there defeat like the fall of Nazi Germany. People were dancing in the streets around the world.

I would think a sane person might want to take a look at what the heck they were supporting for the entire world to celebrate my defeat.

I did say "sane person".

I always wondered why people in the middle class would vote for a party for the rich.
Are they confused, stupid or a racist.

Looking at the current state of the GOP it seems as though those are the three requirements left to be a Republican.

Go Rush Go.

Posner's claims that the peak of Conservatism was reached in the Clinton years, and that he saw no need for further significant changes, raise the immediate and obvious question for someone who is expressing concern for the intellectual integrity of Conservatism proceeding forth: how, exactly, might he himself have ever defined Conservatism in terms of underlying principles so that the Clinton years was a near perfect embodiment of those principles?

I can at least understand, say, Libertarians, whose principles are reasonably coherent, if, in my opinion, quite insane in any implementation. I can more or less understand the views of the so-called Christian Right, who can appeal to their own independent body of religious belief as underlying a set of political policies -- which policies, again, I happen to find quite insane in implementation.

But what is the set of principles that Posner might be appealing to, which, presumably, represent an intellectually coherent view about the ideal polity? How might the mass of compromises and seeming inconsistencies in the government of the Clinton years ever be seen, from the point of view of a Conservative, as asymptotically approaching that ideal?

It's a little hard to take Posner's assessment here with any seriousness.

For future reference, I am "Anonymouse" with an extra "e."

@Jack: You are quite correct that the Republican presidents since 1980 have largely ignored fiscal conservatism -- talking the talk without walking the walk, so to speak. But conservatism, as an ideology, is separate from the actions of any one particular person, or even from the actions of "conservative" politicians that manage to garner a majority in a house of Congress.

And today, I note an MSNBC banner stating that the RNC plans to begin a campaign in which they will start calling Democrats "Socialists" beginning next week. Well, I'd say that campaign began quite some time back, but if there is one objective correlative that really just crystallizes the death of an ideology, it could well be that. Can any here imagine what would happen if the DNC announced in a press release that starting next week they were going to begin referring to Republicans as "fascists"? I mean, who does the RNC think this is going to appeal to? Democratic party identity is up substantially, with even larger percentages of independents stating that they lean Democrat. So the way to entice those folks back to the Republican party is to start a campaign in which "lean Democrat" becomes synonymous with "lean Socialist"? Either the RNC succeeds in irritating the hell out of people who will simply become further entrenched with the idea of voting for people calling them socialists, or the word "socialist" will become such a laughable bit of hyperbole that Republicans will single-handedly manage to restore Socialism as a viable political ideology in this country, through its emasculation as a pejorative.

And today, I note an MSNBC banner stating that the RNC plans to begin a campaign in which they will start calling Democrats "Socialists" beginning next week. Well, I'd say that campaign began quite some time back, but if there is one objective correlative that really just crystallizes the death of an ideology, it could well be that. Can any here imagine what would happen if the DNC announced in a press release that starting next week they were going to begin referring to Republicans as "fascists"? I mean, who does the RNC think this is going to appeal to? Democratic party identity is up substantially, with even larger percentages of independents stating that they lean Democrat. So the way to entice those folks back to the Republican party is to start a campaign in which "lean Democrat" becomes synonymous with "lean Socialist"? Either the RNC succeeds in irritating the hell out of people who will simply become further entrenched with the idea of voting for people calling them socialists, or the word "socialist" will become such a laughable bit of hyperbole that Republicans will single-handedly manage to restore Socialism as a viable political ideology in this country, through its emasculation as a pejorative.

The abortion comments on here keep bringing up "scientific hypocrisy."

The Right Wing has always been a big fan of Capital Punishment, claiming it different than abortion as far as taking a live goes.

In fact most anti-abortion people are pro-capital punishment, and for the most part their opposition to abortion comes from their religious views.

The fact that Jesus was put to death by Roman Capital Punishment (crucifixion) seems to allude them.

For example at Notre Dame there are people protesting Obama speaking there because he supports abortion law. Yet George Bush spoke there and he was the most executing Governor EVER.

(Not to mention his decisions led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many who were innocent or undeserving and include children)

Make no mistake, the Catholic Church and the Pope are against both Abortion and Capital Punishment. Yet you won't hear that second part mentioned by Right Wingers in the US.

So all the Bishops are hypocrites if they're protesting Obama and didn't protest Bush. Obama will need a lot of time to put as much blood on his hands as Bush and his supporters have.

If you are against Abortion yet support Capital Punishment you're not only a hypocrite you lack basic historical knowledge of Christianity.

Any way, lots of good posts to this article. Personally I hope Republicans continue in their death spiral and split into a moderate party that has a chance of getting elected, let the wing nut "American Taliban" go off in the own corner and cry.

I'll second Tyler's comment (5/12 12:19) regarding the irony of an excellent post on conservatives' problem with anti-intellectual rabies being answered by a lot of howling and frothing.

To my mind, the best short essay on how the Right lost its way remains John Rogers' classic I Miss Republicans.

It's amazing how many conservatives argue that the GOP is not becoming anti-intellectual and then rebut the work of many highly intelligent, well informed, and hard working experts who have spent the majority of their careers learning as much as they can about a subject like the climate, by calling experts 'elitists' and preferring their own gut feelings, otherwise known as common sense, despite their own lack of knowledge, over the well tested processes of science. They elevate their argument from personal incredulity to the level of expertise. I guess we shouldn't bother looking into climate because the deniers, based on their personal and unique common sense, wrapped in a blanket of genetic fallacy, have it all figured out.

The Democrat's Dictionary...

Wasteful Spending: Bush's $800 billion deficits

Economic Stimulus: Obama's $1.6 trillion deficits

Hope: The belief that Government will provide everything for everyone by printing money and deficit spending.

Change: The amount of money left in your pocket after the Black Hand raises utility costs and taxes on the middle class.

Uniting the Country: While we debate how to stimuluate our economy with some more keynesianism, Obama sends our money overseas to fund abortion. Opposite of Bush, the polarizing ideologue.

Equality: Infrastructure spending can't go to white construction workers.

Solution: Government

Failure: Capitalism

Republicans: Stupid, Racist and Corrupt

Democrats: Intelligent, Pure and Perfect

Global Warming: Settled theory and proof that man is killing the planet. Alternative viewpoints not permitted. We need a carbon tax NOW...!

8.99 Month Old Baby: flushable

Baby who survives an abortion: Not "PERSONHOOD". Let it die on the table.

Communist Manifesto: Clearly spelled out in the Preamble of the US Constitution.

Property Rights: Prohibits equality and unfair. Economic stimulus for Government to steal property for the public use of tax revenue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DlTgrMCxPg

Perhaps we should look at any ideology ("conservatism," "liberalism," whatever) as a collection of responses to the then-current conditions. Since some people are literate, those responses are informed by published responses of others to seemingly analogous conditions in the past. For Judge Posner, the "conditions" were -- as he clearly lays out -- Soviet communism, the expansion of the role of government in LBJ's "Great Society," and the uncomfortable economic circumstances in which the US found itself beginning in the very late 1960s and throughout the 1970s.

Those conditions have passed and, in Judge Posner's view, they passed because the conservative prescription for dealing with them was adopted and was successful.

So, it's not surprising that he found conservatism -- as he knew it -- successful.

I suspect that he's being a little polite in his discussion of the current issues that seem to animate "conservatives" -- of which these comments offer good evidence -- because, with the exception of "global warming," they are, in a sense, trivial. By "trivial" I mean that they are not existential with respect to our society as we know it. The question of abortion, and of contraception, has been a matter of moral and religious debate for centuries. Its resolution is never going to be permanent and the fate of society does not turn on how it is resolved. Likewise, the resolution of the Second Amendment question is not going to endanger the Republic, no matter how it turns out. These issues are shams in the sense that their principal utility is in their ability to be used by political organizers to turn out passionate minorities who, by their numbers, can tip low-turnout elections (like primaries) one way or the other.

So, while it's tempting to dismiss Judge Posner as an old fart who's lamenting that his time has passed, it would be a mistake to do so. The reason it would be a mistake is that his essay, in part, is a complaint about the failure of the heirs of the intellectual tradition he cites to address the current conditions in a way that they did, instead of chasing the rabbits and red herrings of abortion rights, gun control and global warming.

With the massive fiscal expansion of government proposed by this administration and the current unstable economic circumstances, it certainly would be nice for an organized "second opinion" to be out there for the public to consider.

But, at the moment, there is none that is being presented to the public in an organized, cohesive fashion.

Just curious...

Do you guys think the gay-nazi movement is hurting the Democrat party...?

This is actually a serious question. Your President is against gay marriage. So does this make Barry look like a racist because afterall anyone against gay marriage is a racist...? Or, does this make the left wingers of your party look like silly lunatics?

We know this was just another liberal whackjob trying to use fascist tactics to assassinate the character of another young women. Nonetheless, do you think this hurts your party...?

"The reason it would be a mistake is that his essay, in part, is a complaint about the failure of the heirs of the intellectual tradition he cites to address the current conditions in a way that they did, instead of chasing the rabbits and red herrings of abortion rights, gun control and global warming."

It would be a mistake to think conservatives do not have positions based on intellectual tradition. We do, we are just saving them for now. We will be on the flipside of this economic mess once the current administration's policies really sink in. We will point to hyper-inflation, stagflation, unprecedented deficits, higher taxes, and government corruption. We will point to these at the appropriate time.

It won't be hard to sell capitalism and point out that Government is the problem. Just be patient.

In the meantime, I wouldn't call debates on abortion or our bill of rights red herrings. Many feel these are very real debates. Many feel infanticide and carte blanche partial birth abortion are actually barbaric. If we illustrate how bad these policies are, we illustrate how dangerous the liberal's #1 weapon (judicial activism) really can be when no restraint is used. Let's discuss things like Kelo vs. New London and ask why the 5 liberal judges eroded one of our most storied principles. These debates are just as important, and every bit as intellectual.

"Judicial activism"????

Just what else would you call the asinine "Ledbetter v. Goodyear" decision? The Roberts court flew in the face of both law and legal precedent when it stated that in order for anyone to sue for pay discrimination, they had to do it within 6 months of signing on with a company, in an environment where you can legally be fired for discussing wages with your coworkers?

Puh-LEEEEEEEEEEEEZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today's news about the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly voting (67 votes) to allow concealed carry of licensed handguns in national parks shows that Posner is flat wrong with his implication that the gun issue is somehow a marginal or extreme Republican position.

Like it or not, our jurisprudence (with a traditional extending back even before the English Bill of Rights in 1689), recognizes a fundamental human right to self defense and the possession of arms to that end. All other rights are, in an important sense, subordinate to such right, since other liberties are impossible if one is unable to effectively defend life and property. Whether that's formalistic or un-pragmatic in today's world is irrelevant - that is our tradition and it is overwhelmingly popular with most Americans. Most state constitutions explicitly protect an individual right.

Posner's view of the second amendment evinced in his Heller commentary is stale and really not up to par with his usual work.

Wearing your pinstripe suits in urban workplace is not just designed for fashion’s sake alone. It can be a tool to boost your confidence and how you smartly carry yourself. With proper choosing the right business suit for you, who knows it help on your desired promotion?

Ай яй яй. Спёрли тему у Давыдова))

http://poolsite.ru

Much of the commentary here (obsession with abortion; insistence that global warming is not man-made without any reference to any facts - c'mon, please, just one hyperlink to any corroborating online evidence; willful misspelling of Barack) only confirms Posner’s argument.

It’s too bad that an insightful essay is wasted on 80%+ of the people commenting.

Walter: yes.

A far more clever and entertaining thread is happening in parallel over at Crooked Timber's review of this one.
One commenter proposed a simple means for measuring a thread's toxicity: count the comments before a Godwin's Law event occurs (for this thread, it's three).

It's kind of scary. No; not even "kind of."

Occasional thoughtful comments excepted, the levels of self-congratulation, blind hostility and plain stupidity on display here are spectacular, making Posner's point for him many times over.

I would have preferred for him to be wrong.

Reagan only won ( and so to speak conservatism) , not due to 20% inflation or cold war, but a helicopter runing into a C130 in IRan.

And Bush only won due to a Democratic county clerk in Jewish county. and a electoral college despite the People wanting gore by a 500K margin.

All your pronouncements must be considered in that light.

And I dont hide like conservatives do.
nwerle@gmail.com

Why do you call your philosophy "conservatism"? Are you simply trying to maintain a traditional order, or are there some other grounds for your beliefs?

Just wait for the Roberts court to decide the New Haven firemen case. We shall see how dead conservatism really is.

One step closer to real equality.

Amazing. I've never seen evidence for an opinion piece self-organize like that before. If the commentators above truly represent the core of the conservative movement then it is truly dead. The maggots are now all that remain, feeding on a corpse that was once full of ideas and challenge. All that remains are noxious fumes and blurts.

Conservatism is dead for a generation, minimum. It has become the home of anti-rational anti-intellectual stupid people. Read up on "The Four Laws Of Stupidity" and it will make things abundently clear: stupid people are the most dangerous of all. The biggest mistake that the Republican party made was that it catered far too much to populism, the stupidity became viral and infected the host. The people
who started the ball rolling? They're dead. All that is left are the people who actually believed them.

I am not sure where to start in my response to Judge Posner's analysis of contemporary conservatism. One problem is that there are different types of conservatives as Judge Posner touched on. While I agree with much of what Judge Posner says in practical application, I sense that I am very different from him in temperament, cultural background, and underlying philosophy. Personally, I would be more of a Jeffersonian Southern agrarian mixing classical liberalism with social conservatism. I do not find the "be all and end all" of life in wealth creation. The free market interests me more for its emphasis on individual liberty coupled with individual responsibility producing what nineteenth century legal theorists termed "ordered liberty." In contrast to Judge Posner, I do admire Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley. I wonder what Judge Posner thinks of Richard Weaver and Melvin Bradford?

So, as conservatives have become more successful, we have foolishly come to believe that we have the luxury of indulging in castigating those with whom we disagree on relatively fine points while the left reasserts itself. I cannot think of any thinker or politician with whom I agree 100%. For example, I disagree with Melvin Bradford on his portrayal of Lincoln. Judge Posner for all of his realism and pragmatism seems to have fallen into this kind of self-indulgence. We must cooperate with each other so that while candidly and respectfully recognizing and discussing our differences we can move forward to combat the left. Otherwise, we will devour ourselves as the left has traditionally done to themselves.

Success and prosperity have bred this kind of nit-picking and absurdly critical attitude toward our own folks which parallels a similar problem that is becoming ever increasingly manifest in the general population--and that is just this: prosperity breeds self-destruction. Daniel Bell wrote of the "cultural contradictions of capitalism" where the virtues that made capitalism so successful in producing ever-increasing amounts of wealth that later generations became complacent about the necessity of hard work, saving, and moral self-restraint (in short, deferred gratification) and became fascinated by the prospects of immediate self-indulgence made possible by the plenty resulting from temperance and moderation. The traditional conservative verities do not look so appealing to most when the lure of ease, perpetual excitement, low standards, selfish gain, crudity, and sexual nihilism loom so large on the horizon in everyday life so that they have now become an ingrained part of the Western way of life. This impetus to a pervasive laxness and self-indulgence manifested itself in the 1920's giving rise to modernism's rejection of the accumulated wisdom of our culture in order to loosen what seemed to be to the Lost Generation a set of shackles that limited their potential. Only the disciplining hand of Great Depression and World War II returned us to the cold, hard truths of self-control and social cooperation paving the road to lasting prosperity and genuine personal development. We caught some glimpse of what might return us to the path we have veered from that had made us so prosperous and free in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks as people became more circumspect and gentle in their attitude and tone as well as returning to church seeking in desperation the God that they had become too busy and too corrupt to pray and listen to.

It is unfortunate that average people, including rank and file conservatives, have ignored the intellectuals. But, again, this is part of the story of the cultural contradiction of capitalism. First, most of the intellectuals who have gained notoriety in recent years are on the left. The Media is controlled by the left, so naturally that is who they feature. These leftists have shown such disdain for working people that even the leftist intellectual Slavoj Zisek has criticized American leftists for being so disdainful of the working class. So, when conservative intellectuals start talking in tone and phrase like the very people who are working class folks' mortal enemies, naturally they tend to be leery of them. Leftist intellectuals and even some rightist intellectuals, such as Richard Posner, have fallen into the dynamic that I described above--they seem culturally suicidal believing that they have more knowledge and better judgement than the accumulated wisdom embedded in folk practices, habits, and customs. Again, so people are naturally and rightfully skeptical of such pretensions.

A second problem here is that the very success of the market marginalizes intellectuals. Most people are not intellectually inclined--consider here Judge Posner's discussion of the American electorate and their lack of interest in political philosophy and policy. So, if working class people have increasing wealth and more options, say on cable television, radio, and reading material, they opt for what suits their taste and it ain't very highfalutin. In fact, millions watch C-Span and read fairly serious books such as Judge Posner and others write. But compared with the tens of millions who do not show such interests, these television programs and books and articles are swamped in terms of numbers and influence by mindless drivel. So, commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Bill O' Reilly are really the best we can be doing in such an anti-intellectual climate. I am thankful for these showmen who can catch the attention of average people who are immersed in their daily activities and present serious, complex discussions in an entertaining manner. What else can you reasonably expect in such a time as ours?

Finally, I disagree with Judge Posner on the failure of religion and free market economics. While certain flaws have been exposed in monetarist macroeconomics, such realizations should not point us to Keynesianism but to Austrian macroeconomics whose theorists predicted and can account for the situation that we now find ourselves in. I expect that their analysis and predictions concerning the bailouts and stimulus plan will be verified over the next few years.

In the area of religion, while Evangelical Christianity has had some conspicuous embarrassments in recent years, they have also made great advances in reaching people in their spiritual lives on an individual basis. Unfortunately, though, many Christians have fallen into the moral cesspool that we have all found ourselves submerged in living their daily lives much like the unsaved. A distinctive element of early Roman Christians was their kindness and honesty as they lived out what they believed in the face of brutal persecution. I am sorry to say that the bulk of Christians have not presented such a testimony to modern non-Christians. At the same time, Christian intellectuals have made headway in the academic world. Alvin Plantinga, a philosopher at Notre Dame, is considered one of the top living logicians. Other prominent philosophers and scientists are professing Christians. Journals such as *Faith and Philosophy* and *Philosophia Christi* give voice to serious reflection on spiritual aspects of reality from a Christian perspective. We need more, not less, of such approaches to religion.

Overall, I do agree with Judge Posner that conservatism needs to be revitalized with an intellectual resurgence. But I believe that he goes too far in trying to expunge elements of the Conservative Movement that we need to welcome and include even while we might disagree on some points.

And what, pray tell, is the intellectual foundation of liberalism. Saul Alinsky, John Rawls? Cloward-Piven? Zeke Emmanuel? Lyndon Johnson? Jimmy Carter? James Carville? Bill Clinton? Karl Marx? Barney Frank? Nancy Pelosi?
You must be joking!!!

As a scientist, I find the idea that global warming is some kind of conspiracy in order to "control people" a terrific insult, and evidence of a complete lack of understanding of the scientific community. It is an exercise in projection, by people who would, if they could, use their (scientific) authority to control people. Scientists can be and often are flawed in many ways, but conspire to control the population they do not.

We should treat such conspiracy theories the same way we would the idea that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by a conspiracy of intelligence workers. For instance, while it may be the case that the intelligence agencies screwed up, the idea that many of its workers conspired to do so is laughable, and is an insult to those who work day and night to protect us.

The question about global warming is not if and why it's happening, but rather what can we do, what should we do, and what can we afford. That's the frontier of useful discussion.

Many of the responses to this post only affirm what Judge Posner is arguing.

I'm laughing at the the irony.

"...the inanity of trying to substitute will for intellect..."

I'd put it a bit differently: "the inanity of trying to substitute belief for evidence..."

From one of several "Anonymous" posters:

"Barry's first deficit is going up to $3.59 trillion. No more playing the blame game for Barrack. His Keynesianism is HIS... and nobody else's. This is your baby...!

The CBO knows Obama's deficits will be disastrous.

Jimmy Carter interest rates, HERE WE COME!!!

Yes, another Reagan Revolution is just around the corner."

Thank you James B. for apparently being the first commenter to wake up and smell the irony.

But much more importantly, "another Reagan Revolution" can't be the Great White Hope here, can it? How can you possibly excoriate Obama for deficits and then fifteen words later turn around and say "It sure would be nice to have Reagan back." A return to Reaganism is going to make us fiscally responsible, get us back to budget surpluses, saving during the good times like Norway and Canada? Really? Just like it did last time?

Quit smirking, quit hoping that your failures could somehow be vindicated by another's, and start trying to figure out how you managed to talk such a good game about fiscal responsibility and simultaneously supported a Vice President who said "Deficits don't matter."

As this country never has had a feudal class, there never has been a genuine "conservative" movement, just a group of a troglodyte ractionaries. As for it succeeding -- dream on.

"rest on its laurels" and this seals the debate in favor of what Posner states but it would have to include Justice Posner himself. To the victors go the spoils but that means there are the enslaved chained to your chariots as you pass victoriously into your retirement homes as you await you triumphant return after the enemy fails.

I used to tell my macroeconomics classes that liberals are not communists as they had been told. I would say that the true conservatives, the Milton Friedman Chicago School types, had more in common with Marx than Marx has with liberals. Both said leave capitalism alone and you will find a utopia. Liberals just say you need to protect people from the worst excesses of capitalism and save it from itself.

Now it is funny that I read your explanation of the conservative decline and how it will rise again and again I see Marx. You are describing the dialectic, the historical material dialectic. Wow, I am shocked.

Your slaves threw off their chains and elected a good man to lead them back to what was left of their future. You seriously have destroyed the dreams of entire generation of Americans with your victory and all you can think of is your intellectual arguments returning relevance because of the excesses of your opposition. This is the mentality of a political and economic philosophy built on the need to be relevant at all cost. Even if the cost is the destruction of the very thing it was intended to preserve.

Alan Greenspan had this disease as did Milton Friedman. They thought in Utopian, blackboard economic (Coase) terms and failed to see the destructiveness of the Utopian dream in the face of failed assumptions. MNC are not powerless price takers. Too big to fail, corporate welfare, wealth skews income to the wealthy, and mathematics uber alles is not many buyers and sellers, perfect information, homogeneous products and no barriers to entry. Last but certainly not least power is anathema to market economics.

It failed. Your laurels are our chains. Your considering all of this as a victory makes me wonder who you consider the enemy.

Dan......... and others:

RE: "Jimmy Carter interest rates, HERE WE COME!!!"

It looks like their are a lot of comments from those who may not have lived through the Nixon-Ford-Carter era, or if they did, have little understanding of it. Or perhaps are just sloganeers with no interest in the actuality?

Anyway IF they are interested, the high interest rates were spawned by high inflation rates. Where did the inflation come from? Perhaps it began with the cost of the Vietnam war "financed" as today with a no sacrifice, by guns AND butter approach. Nixon was forced the rising price of gold to take us off the gold standard.

Shortly thereafter the newly formed OPEC found the purchasing value of their oil falling and managed to raise prices by cutting supply. Soon after the Yom Kippur war and other M/E wars caused oil prices to soar. Naturally "cost push" inflation took place on everything related to oil. Hard to imagine today, but Nixon quickly imposed "price controls". (Quotes indicating the PC's did not work very well to say the least.) This chart and the accompanying article shows the oil prices and events well.

By then inflation psychology had a death grip on the nation and much of the world. "Buy it NOW! Before it goes higher!" was the wisdom of the day.

Taking a look around these tables you can see how inflation broke out in 1973.

Those equating inflation and high interest rates with Carter seem not to recall it was a BIG problem for Ford........ who had large campaign buttons made up with WIN on them -- the motto being "Whip Inflation Now" which probably had the effect of disclosing to all that inflation was here to stay and even the President had no idea how to stop it.

Interest rates:

generally tracked the inflation rate though the Fed had a hand in pushing them yet higher to break the back of the persistent inflation.

Pretty hard to pick a villain out of the lot unless it was our, then, 30% dependency on imported oil that made us, in the short run, nearly as vulnerable and helpless to do anything about the external price increase of energy as we are today when we're over 60% dependent.

Carter understood all this and tried hard to put us on a road toward conservation and less dependency on imported oil. Perhaps CAFE stds and the recession "stagflation" caused by oil prices worked TOO well; for a brief time. OPEC cracked and oil dropped to $10/bbl.

One negative aspect of the CAFE stds was that of Detroit dropping station wagons and with cheap gas, folks who needed bigger rigs turned to Chev's Suburbans, others to P/U's, Ford brought out the Explorer under the SUV loophole in CAFE standards and the SUV craze was soon in full swing replete with 6000 GVW rigs such as the Hummer, Expeditions and large trucks being eligible for tax deductions of $65,000 or more.

So here we are with the world's largest fleet of gas guzzlers all teed up for the next "surprising" oil shock. How bad could the next one be?

So far we've not seen an era when demand for oil actually outstripped supply. But whether one believes we can call "Peak oil" to a year or decade, it's clear that unless radical changes are made, soaring world demand WILL outstrip supply. Fairly soon.

When that time approaches if we maintain the current oil futures market that allows the entire world to speculate on oil prices (that their very speculation causes to rise) we could see a huge run up in oil prices, related inflation, and interest rates that would make "Carter era rates" look like a bargain.

Needless to say that will be the end of the American living standard we've come to take for granted, and not too bright for the nation that relies on consuming one quarter of the world's energy to put themselves in such a defenseless position.

Now, how much effort and resources do you think we can and should, spend HERE on our own energy conservation and alternatives?

I'll try to post the associated links..... our Proffs must have such a problem with spammers that links won't post

Graphs for post above:

wtrg.com/prices.htm

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx?dsInflation_currentPage=2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_funds_rate

This essay and most of the comments really crack me up. I especially love the anonymous comments advocating anti-abortion forced-birth. Holy christ! This fellow writes an essay, and you all come along and prove him correct. Let this stand as a monument to modern conservative thought. Let this stand for the GOP, for it is truly ruled from the pulpit and from the radio waves. Let this string of comments stand forever. Hilarious. Love it.

"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness..."

The liberal democrat interprets this as:

"Life for those who I say qualify as PERSONHOOD..., Liberty excluding your right to free expression, religion, arms, and property..., and Entitlement (Pursuit is for evil capitalists) to benefits from insolvent government programs like medicare and social security, and why not throw on nationalized healthcare (we'll finance that with a tax on soda pop)...?

The life is simple:

(1) if we would not work we will all die from hunger

(2) if we do not have stimuli we would not work

(3) if we would not have capitalism we would not have sustainable stimuli

(4) if we would discriminate any category of people, say illiterate kitchen workers, every illiterate kitchen worker can learn how to use a firearm and do a lot of damage to the society.

(5) if we would not defend ourselves against united pinkos and savages of the world we would not have capitalism

(6) we do not have enough MPs to put them on every cross-road of the world and in any case these MPs cannot freely machine gun disobeying pinkos/savages

One does not need help intellectuals to understand these self-evident to the degree of being boring truth. The only contribution from conservative "intellectuals" so far was messing up with issue (6).

Conservatism is synonym with plain/old/boring which in exact opposition to all things intellectual like pacifism, existentialism, fascism, communism and most of other recently invented isms

Liberals: You are not intelligent just because you claim to be. I know this is what National Propaganda Radio feeds its listeners on a daily basis, but let's try to cut through that cr@p here.

Before the bandwagon gets too comfortable saying intellectual conservatism is dead forever, let's just wait and see how Mr. Government's policies sink in and play out. Let's see how big that bill gets that he passes on to our children. Let's actually feel inflation eating away real growth. Let's see if the dollar remains the world's reserve currency. Let's see how current policies jack up energy costs. Let's see if the middle class gets any tax increases. Let's see how long Obama wages war. Let's see how many more lies Nancy Pelosi gets busted on. Let's see how much more corruption Chris Dodd gets caught on. Let's see if there is another Iranian hostage crisis.

Can we do this before your egos bounce off the moon?

You are naive if you think intellectual conservatism is dead. It is just laying low and stacking the deck while we all watch Government reinflate our bubble economy and screw everything up again.

Ваш пост навел меня на думки *ушел много думать* ...

большое спасибо!Взяла себе тоже-пригодится.

Russell Kirk, and Bill Buckley were never sufficiently grounded in the conservative ideology. If you look at some of the better histories of poltical theory (Sabine, Sibley) you find, practically, nothing on conservativism. Elsewhere, where you do, the slant is obvious and deplorable - in most cases.

Just as there is tension in liberal ideology between freedom and equality (requiring people like Rawls to revamp Scoial Contract theory) there is a tension that has gone unarticulated by conservatives between independence (freedom) and duty. Locke doesn't address this difficulty; nor do Kirk, Rand, Buckley etc. Conservatism's adaptation, ideologically, to evolving conditions has been inhibited by the sort of incipient anti-intellectualism on the right Posner mentions here and in his book. Kant is the best ideological precursor of what will be required to supply the material for a new, perhaps, uniquely American conservatism.

There is another side, however, to anti-intellectualism on the right. This is a reflection of the, clearly, hostile attitude in higher education, generally, against voicing conservative views. Many "anti-intellectual" conservatives are reacting against this orthodoxy among the majority of educators. My point is that by stiffling conservative views in academia the blame for anti-intellectualism cannot fall on conservatives alone, at the level of, otherwise, highly regarded insitution.

A very interesting and well-written critique of the reasons I would not even consider voting for anyone from the current Republican party, and then your posters prove your words are right over and over and over and over.

Very instructive.

As long as the 'conservative movement' is willing to go to any lengths and trample anyone's rights in order to stay in positions of power, we will have a hard time slowing them down. It's not the power of the people anymore. It's the power of the people's government. Sad, really.

"This is a reflection of the, clearly, hostile attitude in higher education, generally, against voicing conservative views. Many "anti-intellectual" conservatives are reacting against this orthodoxy among the majority of educators. My point is that by stiffling conservative views in academia the blame for anti-intellectualism cannot fall on conservatives alone, at the level of, otherwise, highly regarded insitution."

For too long, liberals have used these fascist tactics. It is childish when you get right down to it. Clearly, the pop culture circuit is using similar tactics by attacking a young girl just because she gave an honest opinion to a political question, which happens to be the same answer shared by California voters. For crying out loud, the Donald had to say something to you clowns. The third branch of the holy trinity of liberal fascism lies in the man-made global warming theory, an unsettle scientific theory with plenty of credentials all over the debate. For the love of God, please don't be NAZIS this blantantly...! The globe is cooling right now and you people want a carbon tax when NOBODY knows the relationship between CO2 and Temp. You think China is going along with this idea you idiots, or do you really want all non-union manufacturers to leave this country so you can finish your quest to organize labor in this socialist economy? How many nobel peace prize awards has Al Gore won on this topic?

The intellectual conservatives will have their day when we see the mess this administration leaves for our next generation. They are right to stay patient for now. Let Big Govt. have its day, because it'll be an easy target tomorrow.

In the meantime, we'll call it as we see it and express opinions accordingly. I know they'll want to censor opinions, but let them try. It just exposes them for who they are.

Anon: If you can't quite "get there" on warming, as a matter of public policy it doesn't matter much as the response to Peak Oil is much the same path.

Or, even if Peak Oil is a bridge too far? and you are as concerned about what's left of the US economy as your vitriolic rant would indicate, your other path would be a rational response to exporting our capital to OPEC nations for smaller and smaller amounts of oil, and now, LNG.

The paths are not congruent but lead in the same direction. The first and most crucial priority is conservation of what we now waste. Conservation is the cleanest, cheapest, and most readily available of responses to warming, having demand outstrip supply, and keeping OUR investment capital at home.

Conserving which would seem to have appealed to hard working farmers and other truly conservative groups who contributed much to our nation in the past is also a great jobs generator. Surely you can envision one of our tough and savvy pioneers responding to $140 oil by working day and night to re-insulate his home, investing in the most efficient heating system, perhaps innovating a way to burn corn stalks and other slash, then sitting down on his porch rocker hoisting an end of the day drink with a grin and saying contentedly "Take that!"

Today's "conservatives" could learn a lot from their forebears, not the least of which would be that even the most powerful military can not protect us from the vulnerability we've exposed ourselves to by becoming over 60% dependent on OPEC for our MOST important resource.

How did you like $4 gasoline, soaring utility bills, and rapidly increasing food prices? That one could just be a small taste of what things will be like when oil supply actually does fall below the supply curve.

So why all the talk about abortion? Did you people read the post here? And what happens if you make abortion illegal. Does that end abortion? Did that end drug use? Did prohibition end alcohol abuse? The whole point is that raving about infanticide is a dead end. People want a substantive policy debate. Making abortion completely illegal will simply create a black market for it. This means that the rich will just fly to another country and the poor will have illegal, unclean and dangerous procedures. Moralizing is not a substitute for careful thought. Think about the consequences for once.

Abortion is a Life issue. Libertarians fight for innocent Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Science says we are talking about Life. In my view, abortion is fine for conservatives to make an issue. Asking a conservative to drop abortion is like asking Obama to drop "redistributing wealth".

Gay Marriage on the other hand falls into the red herring. I think conservatives should be more libertarian here. See, govt. should get out of the marriage business, it should be a religious thing. Govt. should stick to unionizing and that is it. Keep them separate and let each do what they want. But if Perez Hilton is going to make a clown of himself, I feel obligated to point out that he is a gay nazi.

Forcing Cap and Trade on us though makes Global Warming an economic issue. ALL ECONOMIC ISSUES are on the table. If posner feels it is not "intellectual" to talk about an economic issues and challenge unsettled scientific theory, I could not disagree more. The same goes for all the liberals on here. Carbon taxation, you have to be kidding right...?

Property rights, again according to David Souter, has become a front and center economic issue. Those saying this is a red herring have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Property rights are the cornerstone of our entire economy. It amazes me that five liberal lawyers with zero economic credentials eroded this priniciple. To this day, the City of New London owns dirt and collects zero tax revenue after bulldozing homes and stealing property.

Gun rights and the rest of our bill of rights, hey we libertarians go to the grave here. I see no reason why not to discuss these things with those who are trying to take them away from us.

We'll get to stagflation, taxation and deficits at the appropriate time. For now, bring it on.

This site is intelligent and gives me the feeling that the folks here really care about the public.

In addition, I wanted to test to see if this site will honor my input.

Once I have that information, I'd like to be an active contributor and supporter of what you are doing.

Dr. Moore

Shame on you, Dr. Rob. It appears that you are really a spammer.

Anon: I wonder if you'd like to try YOUR hand at relating (or designing?) the model law if Roe were overturned?

So far I've not found ANY of today's "conservatives" or anti-choicers if you prefer, who'll even begin to put forth a few of the needed enabling laws or the enforcement and punishment policies.

BTW ARE you a bot of some sort? Myself and others have asked "you?" direct questions, but you post only the unexamined, generalized and cliched pap that makes up much of AM radio.

Hey Jack,

You are too intelligent and usually civil to be using Saul Alinsky's tactics against someone with whom you disagree.

Спасибо. Просто спасибо, за красивые мысли вслух. В цитатник.

I don't know how the conclusion-"Capitalism is over" can be drawn so readily when over time it has proven to be the longest most successful economic system in recent history.

For proponents of Global Warming-I ask you to think relatively. I don't understand why such a successful system that has given proven and current opportunity to many should be sacrificed to the theories of Global Warming.

I do think economics is somewhat of an art form but I think the objectives of Capitalism have been more proven in balance when compared to the theories of Global Warming. Theories which will come to fruition or possibly not many decades form now.

Being "scientific" means you have to consider that possibility.

Some of what the author suggests views more of one side and doesn't seem to weigh the other.

He states that Republicans are over fixated on abortion and while I don't necessarily disagree with that-I think the Democrats are just as fixated on the push back of that-as in their advocation of abortion.

Then the author goes on to lament-that Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber became the faces of the Republican party.

How did that come to be?

That was a decision primarily made by John McCain-who ran as a sort of anti-Republican-his pick of Sarah Palin was in an effort to re-enforce that. I don't think too many of the political members of the Republican party were thrilled with the appointment of someone who had not done her time, payed her dues and had unseated Gov, Murkowski a long serving Republican. Intellectual Republicans surely figured that out.

McCain did run rather liberal on the issue of Global Warming, he did run strong on defense and I find it rather lacking in compassion -{being a member of the active duty community until just recently}- that in 2004 the author seems to feel that strengthening our defense posture was too great a cost. That seems to be what he is implying.

I am surprised that the author seems not to notice that the responsibility for a failure to anticipate the problems were somehow all the doing of Republicans. Democrats won the majority of both the House and Senate in 2006. The House having control of the 'purse strings' Barney Frank was asked before the pro-ported collapse of the economy to help regulate before the fall of the November election cycle.

I wonder why the author doesn't find it depressing that the Liberals on the thread here and on the threads that have been linked to this discussion seem to be celebrating the demise of Capitalism, and the seeming collapse of a two party system. What is America without that?

It's sad that the author has surrendered to it.

Sorry for the excessive spacing this format is new to me-and the preview made it appear differently from the end result.

What do you think of new antitrust chief Christine Varley's promise of "vigorous" antitrust enforcement and her rejection of the Bush-era Sherman Act Section 2 limits?

Here is a simple question for the "pro-choice" chatters:

You have all the numbers today. Nancy Pelosi can put a bill on Barack's desk tomorrow that bans abortion except in the rare case that a mother's life is on the line. She can even distinguish this ban exclusive to "partial-birth" abortion.

Why won't she do this...?

Jim: Perhaps the method of asking those we disagree with questions that force them to think through their own precepts goes back further than Alinsky to Socrates?

But! It seems not to work with those are, or are willing to be thought of, as bots, trolls or mechanical transponders for the whack-right that has taken over OUR AM radio waves. As if 24/7 on thousands of stations was not full saturation?

Joe D: Antitrust Division of Justice? I'm extremely happy to see that they still exist! I had thought the Bush Admin had furloughed them for the full eight years. Here's just ONE example of the destruction wrought by NOT challenging a merger under Anti-Trust and then not regulating the predatory monster it became.

Sandy Weill
Who decided banks had to be all things to all customers? Weill did. Starting with a low-end lender in Baltimore, he cobbled together the first great financial supermarket, Citigroup. Along the way, Weill's acquisitions (Smith

Barney, Travelers, etc.) and persistent lobbying shattered Glass-Steagall, the law that limited the investing risks banks could take. Rivals followed Citi. The swollen banks are now one of the country's major economic problems. Every major financial firm seems too big to fail, leading the government to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to keep them afloat. The biggest problem bank is Weill's Citigroup. The government has already spent $45 billion trying to fix it.

BTW in recent years the "financial sector" has "earned?" 45% of ALL profits earned in the US. I'd ask Americans where they think these gleanings came from, and what they think they got in return?

Jack, the problem is that neither perspective can claim absolute truth either in terms of method or outcome. There are plenty of examples throughout history (of which most persons have a dismal understanding) which would seem to teach that. THe Romans and the barbarians, the Jews and Christ, the Church and Luther and other humanists who were chased all over Europe marked for death because they didn't accept the authority of the church, the Muslims and the infidels, the Nazis and the allies, the communists and the west and on and on. The right might overstate but so does the left in their own way. It isn't even what you believe but what your basic instincts and world view will ALLOW you to believe. There is ALWAYS the possibility that the other guy could be right.

Спасибо. Просто спасибо, за красивые мысли вслух. В цитатник.

Richard Posner,

If merit were determinant, then 90% of elected officials
would have to find another line of work. As for conservatives,
if the halcyon, intellectual days were those of Ronald Reagan,
then one doesn't have much to lose.

Cheerio,

David

Dear Sir,

I unequivocally consider abortion to be the worst form of violence possible, as it is the killing of an innocent life by those who are sworn to protect it (mothers or doctors). I do not want the people who I otherwise agree with (Conservatives) to sell their souls for a few pieces of political silver. Also, why shouldn't the Constitution be interpreted, as Antonin Scalia noted in a recent interview, the way all other laws in this great nation are: as they are written and with the understanding of their intent, without convenient a la mode interpretation?

There are more conservatives than Republicans in this nation and more Republicans than Liberals (NBC/WSJ poll). I agree that Conservatives must play to their natural intellectual strengths, and must distance themselves from the progressive disaster that was the Bush administration.

I am 19 years old, Sir. Do not tell me that the movement is dead.

This is all I have to say.

Abortion as a Preoccupation:

"I unequivocally consider abortion to be the worst form of violence possible, as it is the killing of an innocent life by those who are sworn to protect it (mothers or doctors)..."

This position is exactly what's wrong with conservatism that Judge Posner writes about. This isn't about a compromise in values over "political silver."

The issue of abortion isn't one that will appreciably have any effect on how this country is run. It is an issue primarily about morality, and resolving it either way will not make our country stronger, will not advance the economic interests of our country, will not protect us against terrorism, etc.

The very fact that many Americans choose to make their political decisions on this one issue is what is problematic. What are the limits to your commitment to abortion as a key issue? If I were to give you the hypothetical choice of winning the fight on abortion on one hand, but ensuring that America falls from its seat as the sole world superpower (I'm not suggesting that these are connected), would you take that option? In other words, are you so committed to abortion that you would be willing to subject yourself to self-destruction? If not, then put abortion and other issues of "cultural war" where they properly belong in the priority list of political discourse...

I am a liberal, but I deeply respect Posner and his intellectual contribution to law. Liberals may have won the fight in 2008, but I accept that no one group has all the right answers. It's deeply distressful to me that the "Right" is not available as a legitimate intellectual counterweight.

Who includes Joe the Plumber in a blog post about the conservative movement in the U.S.? I understand why a Democrat operative would, but why would Richard Posner? Am I supposed to believe Mr Posner sees him as anything other that an election year media creation which political campaigns were forced to deal with?

Sometimes we can over think things. When I see a MLB player have a career season past their mid-30's, experience tells me they likely are juicing. When I see elderly intellectuals adopt the 'right' kind of causes [i.e. gay rights], experience tells us they grew tired of being treated like a pariah in the 'right' kind of circles.

Спасибо огромное. Почитал и понравилось. Картинок бы ещё

Жаль що в мене немає переводчика, бо дуже важко перевести цей текст, але хоть за те що я зрозумів - дякую!

Jim: I'd have a lot more regard if the "right" we've seen since......... say Limbaugh became a national phenomnon, and apparently creating a theocracy became a major priority, would debate more symetrically.

This thread gives plenty of examples, since the Reagan era even a simple discussion of the min wage not being raised at all, is rarely debated on the economic merits, but begins right off with cries of "socialism" or "redistributionist" and quickly descends to charges of immorality of some figure or another and so on.

And Hey! it's been a great game and the assymetric tactics served their purpose as min wages and lower wages continue to fall, while median wages remain flat and only those in the top tier gained and those gains have been tremendous.

BUT! Ha! it's been so successful that "we've" killed the golden goose as our economy is strangling for the lack of demand with far too many families having little to no discretionary income. HAD lower, median and even "college" wages followed the productivity line upward, ie most folks participating in the improved productivity we all helped to create, we'd have far few problems today.

Increased wages would not have made up for the wholesale thieving and thinly disguised Ponzi schemes of Wall Street gone mad, but median housing prices have had a long trend of being a certain multiple of median wages. (kinda makes sense, eh?) So with weak wages housing prices will have to fall further to ge back in line with incomes than they would have to were median incomes higher.

The chart at the bottom shows the flat median wage and for those below median it's been a downward slope. (Won't work..... economy will run out of steam.)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5303590.stm

This one shows median home prices across the nation, I think you can quickly see the long term trend line. With so much downward momentum coupled with a deep recession it's not unlikely that home prices will crash below the trend line as they did in other, milder recessions.

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeqrguz/housingbubble/

Two factors that might give housing prices support are the very low interest rates, and that some of that housing stock is bigger and better appointed homes than those of a decade or so ago.

The "first time buyer" credit may help a little too, but, all to often they don't have the income to qualify for much.... trapped again by flat and falling wages.

Now shall we return to "debating" global warming and complaining about Roe Wade without suggesting any workable laws even were Roe overturned, while Rome burns?

Judge Posner your world and its existence found relevance in my attendance of the University of Chicago Law School’s presentation of Shakespeare and the Law. Attending only the Friday’s session I found the conference most enlightening in exploring Shakespearian dictum evolving in the nature of English Law.

As far as the conservative movement, it has made its bed in the previous Bush Administration whose policies never represented conservative values.

Conservatives would never have went to war on illegal means conducting their affairs of fascism behind conservative labels and auspicious.

Their War on Terrorism presented them as the biggest terrorist on the block fronting state supported and sponsor acts and deeds. They considered themselves above and beyond the law.

Shame on you, never once did I heard of your outrage.

May the conservatives and its bedfellows go to hell.

Roy D. Schickedanz

"Neoconservativism" the rejection of international liberalism? Ridiculous, I can't imagine a more succinct definition of neoconservative than a militaristic international liberal. The death of Conservatism was in part a definitional one, with the term being rendered nearly meaningless when the internationalist-militaro-socialist "neoconservatives" corrupted it to include themselves.

I mostly agree with Posner's analysis.

But I would partly disagree with the notion that last year's economic crash showed weaknesses in free-market theory. Many of the seeds of that economic crash didn't come from free-market theory, but from *corporatism*--the Government picking winners and losers rather than letting the marketplace do it.

First, you had the many attempts by both political parties to encourage homeownership, even by those who had never demonstrated that they could afford it. These homeowners took out mortgages that they could never afford, with little money down. And when housing prices declined as they inevitably must, these homeowners went bankrupt.

Second, you had the spectacle of lobbyists for the energy and banking industries writing pieces of legislation that Congress would pass to give special favors to those industries. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 specifically exempted commodity futures and Credit Default Swaps from SEC oversight. The former led to Enron's rise and fall; the latter led to the collapse last year of AIG, and in turn contributed greatly to the U.S. economic decline. (For his work on behalf of Enron, Senator Phil Gramm's wife, Wendy, got a seat on the board of directors of Enron.)

Such special favors to lobbyists were never a part of Friedmanite free-market capitalism; quite the contrary. But too often, conservatives rushed to defend these types of legislation as "supply-side" or some other bogus justification.

Posner has tried to make a legitimate point about the intellectual decline of the conservative movement. And in response, he got a flood of angry responses from social conservatives about God, gays, abortion and the alleged "hoax" of global warming.

Which confirmed everything Posner said.

Cool theme.... thx!....

"The only question is just how much damage will Barrack do in his time."

ROFL, "Anonymous," the only thing for sure in this world is that it could not reach the epic proportions of damage in every aspect of American life wroght by the Bush administration.

Obama '12. Nancy Pelosi as long as she wants, 'cuz she's from SF. We're back, my friend, and we're here to stay. Live with it, baby!

Here is a simple question for the "pro-choice" chatters:

You have all the numbers today. Nancy Pelosi can put a bill on Barack's desk tomorrow that bans abortion except in the rare case that a mother's life is on the line. She can even distinguish this ban exclusive to "partial-birth" abortion.

Why won't she do this...?"

Ummm, why *would* she?

Next?

Here is a simple question for the "pro-choice" chatters:

You have all the numbers today. Nancy Pelosi can put a bill on Barack's desk tomorrow that bans abortion except in the rare case that a mother's life is on the line. She can even distinguish this ban exclusive to "partial-birth" abortion.

Why won't she do this...?"

Ummm, why *would* she?

Next?

Lisa! Perhaps YOU will be the first anti-individual-choice advocate to advance a model law? with a few suggestions of how it would be enforced? who would be jailed and such? Thanks! Jack

Are folks misspelling the President's first name deliberately, or are they ignorant of the correct spelling ("Barack")?

Hey, guys.

Way to prove his argument about "intellectual decline" right.

There's nothing more reassuring to us liberal democrats than watching you flat-earthers and right-to-lifers berate your few, remaining sensible voices. The marginalization of the right is set for the next generation. Bravo! Keep up the good work.

Its really sad to see you RightWingers fall back on Abortion, gay marriage and guns as your core intellectual argument.

ivy

Would any fellow conservatives like to support my argument that NATO is a critical but broken defense alliance whose most likely effective remedy is to let Russia continue to antagonize Ukraine until Poland or Germany suffer sufficient indignation or injury that they realize they cannot capitulate themselves out from under Czar Putin's thumb, but must instead acknowledge, even if in private, that they need US? And that the reasoning behind this remedy is that only consequences precipitate meaningful change in behavior? And that the necessity for NATO is that Europe, while dissipative, whiny, and senile, is also, nevertheless, an essential market for US goods and services whose security priority is second only to our own?

Would any of my fellow conservatives like to engage in a co-think for the purpose of analyzing the relative merits of a one-state v. a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine? Could we start with the question, "what is step 2?" for addressing the incremental insanity of SecDef Lieberman's current hawk position? If not, then how about, "And who in the region not already lobbing missiles at Jews would weep other than crocodile tears if Israel were to pre-emptively strike Iran with massive conventional air power, or tactical nuclear weapons?"

Would anyone like to address, in terms sufficiently concrete to explain what I feel when I stub my toe, the economic theory that employers respond to plummeting sales by creating lots of new high-paying jobs? That stealing from the rich (aka: employers), keeping most for itself, then pitching pennies to the poor, is an excellent government recipe for elevating anyone to the middle class?

Or how about this for a reasoned intellectual plank-walk: All current administration policies have in common a pathological need and drive to control, absolutist-ly, whole sectors of the life and people of the US.

1. Government health-care means government control of your medicine, government control over your doctor. British MRIs are rationed. If your diagnosis, and consequently, your life, depend on that diagnostic tool, then a fatal outcome in your case is equivalent to government-sponsored manslaughter. An interesting aside there - the federal government also has a monopoly on military force. Effectively, the combination of medical and military monopolies twines into the same net effect as the combination of revenue collection and military monopolies: health care control at gun point, just as income taxes are collected at gun point.

2. Fed control of the financial system means fed control of all private money in the country, other than circulating cash (approx 7% of GDP). They want to dictate everyone's salary, not just those who took fed $.

3. Union control of heavy industry is equivalent to DNC-proxy control of heavy industry. Has organized labor ever touched anything it didn't kill? Anyone in California (with +4 consciousness) care to disagree? How about any parents of public school kids, or non-union US car investors, suppliers, or customers?

4. Every bailout dollar came with strings attached to perpetuate DNC control over states and cities.

5. Sorry, Judge Posner, I realize you are my host, in etiquette terms, since this is your blog, but the Democrat position on guns is about control, as are all their policy initiatives to date. On the 2A, I say come aboard and join all the other felony/misdemeanor/mental illness/drug/alcohol/violence-history free, background-checked/fingerprinted/photographed/FBI-database confirmed freedom defenders who own and carry guns every day to protect themselves and their families from the chain-saw massacre free-for-all the felon-huggers (and school unions) have turned our cities into. Go shoot a gun, Judge. You'll like it. On this issue, you are always better late than never. We accept your apology and welcome you aboard- don't even bother writing it.

Anything else? Immigration? Campaign finance? Or is it back to dungeons(global warming) and dragons(abortion)?

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Hmmm... considering what he had to say in the article I'd like to know how his 'going along to get along' in the GOP is functionally any different than Bybee. He was a good little cog and so he got his promotions when he gave the rulings they wanted. The circumstances are different, but the underlying pattern is the same. Nice to see someone speak up about the ills of their party and what it is doing to the country years and years and years after he should have said anything to have any effect.

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