Forums

[sebastian_dangerfield]

This is a fantasy. It ignores (1) that "universal" means that vastly more people will get it, totally overwhelming any savings, and (2) lack of money is hardly the only barrier to to being able to afford food, housing and healthcare, ranging from artificial constraints on supply (e.g., zoning), to access (e.g., "food deserts") and information problems (e.g. non-insurance "prices"), etc.

It should be progressive. The affluent should not receive it.

It turns out that direct provision of fundamental needs is more "efficient" than leaving things to markets if the goal is to make sure everyone gets them. You can see it in how we didn't have nearly the level of unhoused people back when we actually had federal funding of public housing. Turns out markets don't want to create unprofitable housing for the most vulnerable.

As to some, yes. But citing one example does not prove that it is as to all, a sizable fraction, or even a majority of them. Giving money directly is simply far more efficient for most, I suspect. Those items it does not work for can be administered.

As we've discussed before, you do if you don't want to be an asshole. Yeah, I know that's not something that concerns you.

We can agree to disagree about whether one has a duty to empathize. But I wrote a lot more than that line you cherry picked for disagreement. What say you of the rest (pasted below)?

[P]ersonal freedom is a paramount concern to me. So any policy that preys upon certain people, based on race, class, or any other illegitimate basis, is anathema and must be addressed.

This involves ending the drug war, ending our ridiculous obsession with over-jailing, and making "tough on crime" into a badge of shame. Larry Krasner, Philly's DA, is a good example of how to start fixing those things.

Where I get off the train is when you demand that I agree race is the most important issue at the heart of all of these problems. It isn't. It is one of many.

I also do not have a duty to empathize with anyone. You and most Woke folks seem to think this is incumbent upon us all -- that we must study the plight of others and put ourselves in their shoes. Well, where would that end? If we must empathize with one group, it would be unfairly discriminatory to not empathize with others. Ultimately, you either empathize with everyone or you empathize with none.

Do you have a 400 year lifespan in which this could be done?

I also do not agree with the lack of rational thinking in woke scholarship. Many of its underpinnings are logically weak. This is proven by its attempts to censor critiques of it. It is also proven by the attempts of its purveyors to argue (you can look this up) that rationality and logic are oppressive constructs, and that one's "own truth" or "narrative history" is more important. That is not thinking. That is emoting. That is what one sees in a classic moral panic. And moral panics are not something to be fed.

It do not wish to ignore any issue. I wish to have adult conversations about them. This would include the very resonant point that DiAngelo made about whites being reluctant to talk about race. I found that enlightening. This would not include the suggestion that this nation's real founding was 1619 (a claim the editor of that project originally made but subsequently had to walk back when she was mocked by scholars for taking such an unsupportable position). It does not include the Manichean ramblings of Kendri that seek to simplify a complex issue.

If you foist an idea upon a person (me or anyone else) you should expect to have it tested by use of logic and reasoning. If your ideas can only hold public attention by their proponents using them as cudgels, and seeking to censor or avoid all critique, people will view them as suspect. If wokeness wishes to be treated seriously, it should seek to engage seriously. That necessarily means it must invite and accept good faith critique. Not critique like Taibbi's, which I agree with you was offered in bad faith, but critique of thinkers acting in good faith, interested in flashing out the facts, as opposed to emoting grievance or denial of basis for grievance. And there are many such serious thinkers out there who would like to engage the subject but are afraid of being destroyed for having dared stood athwart the current moral panic around race issues.