tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4223398383609158624.post1465469538576940751..comments2024-02-24T00:37:43.087-05:00Comments on The Other McCain: Contra DouthatismRobert Stacy McCainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084541621503669804noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4223398383609158624.post-16414018731452525112008-08-13T11:31:00.000-04:002008-08-13T11:31:00.000-04:00Here's a response:http://joshxiong.com/?p=65Here's a response:<BR/><BR/><BR/>http://joshxiong.com/?p=65Dave Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10871747165285526905noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4223398383609158624.post-27404820262164172102008-08-10T07:44:00.000-04:002008-08-10T07:44:00.000-04:00I do not bother much with topical books, so I have...I do not bother much with topical books, so I have not picked up <I>Grand New Party</I>. I have read Mr. Douthat's writing for a number of years, however. A general difficulty with it is that he appears (true or not) to conceptualize himself as a member of a discussion circle with Mr. Yglesias and others he knew at Harvard and his political advocacy comes as a function of the role he assumes in the circle. He seems almost to apologize for what he advocates and to allocate a considerable measure of his ink to offering criticisms of his supposed confederates for their vulgarity. Self-criticism is a valuable and necessary thing, but for it to be self-criticism one must identify in one's viscera with those criticised. Fr. Neuhaus has offered that if your priority is to not be confounded with <I>them</I>, eventually you will abandon <I>them</I> for their antagonists.<BR/><BR/><BR/>With regard to some of your specific programmatic complaints, one might recall that the negative income tax was an idea promoted by Milton Friedman. Replacing a myriad of subsidies for goods for which expenditure is regular and predictable (food, housing, and utilities) and replacing cash transfers for which the clientele is durably idle (as it is often for the subsidies as well) with a straightforward subsidy to <B>earned</B> income represents a social improvement. The would be less encouragement for perverse behavior and a reduced scope for the therapeutic state.<BR/><BR/>The detritus of the Great Society (somewhat in contrast to the New Deal) was the lapse of the lower ranks of the working class into a socially disorganized and dependent state, living as the clientele of the social work industry. Can it properly be said that Messrs. Douthat and Salam have made their peace with that? It seems to me more likely (from Mr. Salam's commentary of late) that they have made their peace with obnoxious identity politics and the sort of reconstituted social ecosystem that emerged in 1967-79.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4223398383609158624.post-27643155636361713692008-08-09T13:48:00.000-04:002008-08-09T13:48:00.000-04:00A pox on this destructive apostasy and its misguid...<I>A pox on this destructive apostasy and its misguided advocates, whose influence within the Republican Party is the best possible argument to vote for Bob Barr.</I><BR/><BR/>This is not the GOP I once knew. <BR/><BR/>Their love for big-government, borrowing and spending, and interventionism here, there and everywhere are major reasons why I re-registered as a Libertarian, and I'm staying put. <BR/><BR/>I confess, while the neocons may have given me that final shove out the GOP door, the <A HREF="http://www.lp.org/platform" REL="nofollow">LP platform</A> is a much better fit for me anyway.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com