The Slacktivist has, I believe, a compelling post about the disconnect between words and action in political rhetoric. He ties together the shootings in Arizona with something very similar to what I’ve said in the past about abortion. (I don’t think I picked up that theme from him originally, but who knows? I read a lot and don’t always know how ideas creep into my brain.)
He’s not saying that the violent rhetoric caused the shooting of Rep. Giffords or that the comparisons of abortions to the Holocaust caused abortion clinic shootings. Rather, he’s saying that you have to be crazy to take such rhetoric at face value. Because, if you compare such speech to the speaker’s actions, the two don’t match up.
They do not believe their own nonsense. We know that they do not believe it because they “don’t behave” in accordance with what such beliefs would entail — what such beliefs must entail.
. . .
The substance of what they say demands “a radicalized citizenry.” If we are in the midst of a “Holocaust,” then we are obliged to respond more vigorously than simply waiting four years for the next opportunity to cast a vote for a candidate who tells us he sympathizes with our opposition to this “Holocaust.”
. . .
They do not behave as if they believe what they say. We are thus forced to choose between believing their words or believing their actions. We cannot believe that both are true. We cannot believe that both are honest. If their actions, their very lives, are sincere, then their words are dishonest. If their words are sincere, then their lives are monstrous.Neither alternative is pleasant, but these are the only options allowed to us.
The same goes with Palin and “death panels.” “If you really believed that some kind of government Gestapo was being sent to euthanize your elderly neighbors, then opposing these forces would not be a matter of choice. It would be a moral obligation.”
kinda like if abortion is murder, why isn’t it illegal?
The Republicans have a great list of scare words and they target them so effectively to just the right constitituents.:death tax(robbing those in their graves) death panels( hunting down old people to get them off health care to save money) wealth restribution (robbing hard-working people and giving it to no-account minorities) government takeover of health care,meaning government will limit who gets care ( its Ok if private insurance cos. deny care ), and just plain socialism(meaning becoming like ruthless ,militaristic Communist Russia(that’s why we need lots of guns) ,and lets not forget an older term: family values, meaning no gays or minorities be included.
The Democrats should get their political progapanda machine in full operation.. Trouble is, not the right people read the NYT. I’m not suggesting the NYT is propaganda,but that’s part of their ideology.
First, a tu quoque: If anybody believed what Ted Kennedy said about Robert Bork (“In Robert Bork’s America, [insert parade of horribles]!!!”) were they obliged to go shoot Bork?
Second, an overall observation. I have said elsewhere, in less emotionally charged temporal settings than the aftermath of the Arizona shootings, that it is difficult to judge a religion from outside it, reasoning that “if they believe A, they must believe B, because it seems to me that B is the necessary corollary of A. B is contemptible/damnable; therefor the adherents of A are contemptible/damnable.” It’s difficult because the outsider may not even understand A as the religion’s adherents understand it.
The same may be true of an ideology. It is possible to believe that abortion is the deliberate taking of innocent human life without dropping everything to go shoot abortionist or even to chain one’s self to an abortuary door somewhere. It’s possible for reasons like “there’s no local abortuary, thank God, and I have a family to support here.” Or “chaining myself to an abortuary door would be ineffectual, and I’m not authorized to commit vigilante acts.” Or “civil disobedience could get me disbarred.” The point is not whether Doug Masson finds those reasons adequate; it’s whether the adherent does.
Or it’s possible not to take “direct action” simply because one holds concurrently to some values of constitutional legitimacy. Wilson46201: abortion isn’t murder because the Supreme Court said so in 1973. There’s your nice positivist answer. The Supreme Court is Supreme, even when it’s full of merde. Some abortion opponents have been working for 38 years now to persuade the public, then the court, that it was full of merde. (I’m not happy with this state of affairs, but I’m not convinced that I’m obliged to go dance on Harry Blackmun’s grave with a “God Hates Abortion-Loving Justices” sign, let alone breach the peace somehow.)
When the court reverses itself some day, abortion likely won’t be murder because the state legislatures won’t treat it that harshly anywhere, and they’ll leave it legal for 3 or 6 months in some states. I’ll accept that result as at least having a constitutional legitimacy that the Supreme Court’s fiat lacked. It may even embody a certain ineffable wisdom about life in an imperfect world.
I’ve probably over-analyzed what strikes me, both on Slacktivist’s part and Doug’s, as a facile charge of hypocrisy.
It occurred to me as I made breakfast and drove to work that I may have missed a really perverse tendency of the kind of argument advance by Doug and the Slacktivist.
Doug’s logic seems to me to be, hitchhiking on my prior response, that “he who does not do B must not believe A.” Thus does he gently level the charge of hypocrisy toward people who claim that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life. “If you believe that, why aren’t you doing something radical?”
In the context of the Tucson shooting over the weekend, and the many reckless charges that reckless rhetoric is behind such unhinged acts, it strikes me as perverse to say something that might incite some inhinged soul somewhere to show Doug that, b’golly, he’s no hypocrite.
I also should have noted an additional possible reason why people don’t enact what Doug seems to think is the logical corollary of their pro-life premise. It just might be that people are struggling with what strategy is most effectual in the long run for saving the most innocent human lives. I.e., they may be thinking strategically, not just about what would feel cathartic today.
Winston Churchill, for instance, shows after the enigma code had been cracked and he was alerted to an impending attack on Coventry, not to defend Coventry less Hitler realized that his code had been cracked and change it, thus fouling up strategy for the rest of the war.
I know positivly that such strategic thinking goes on in the prolife movement because I have been privy to such conversations. And the strategic thinkers have been lambasted for timidity or hypocrisy (or political subservience to the GOP) for not advocating direct, immediate – and ultimately counterproductive – action.
The person who shoots Leroy Carhart may prevent several hundred abortions until somebody else takes his place; he also portrays the pro-life movement as extremist for what Doug and the Slacktivist should faintly applaud as logical consistency (as they fall to their kness asking forgiveness for inciting it). Some victory, that!
If this kind of argument takes us anywhere, it is as likely to take us to a dangerous place as to enlighten about the perverse question, above the pay grade of Doug, Slacktivist and me, of whether pro-lifers who don’t kill abortionists are hypocrites.
I don’t know, particularly, what language you have used to characterize abortion. The underlying question is whether the actions in response are proportionate to the description of the moral offense.
Coming at it from the other angle (for those who have described abortion as equivalent to the Holocaust, what was the morally acceptable response to the actual Holocaust? The law of the land said that was legal too, I suppose.
(Tipsy’s second comment was pending approval for some reason when I posted my response to the first.)
I could take commentary like this and Doug’s previous postings on the subject a lot more seriously if the posters were using this incident to soul search about the extremist rhetoric on their side of the aisle. Anything else is just exploiting a tragedy for their own political gain, which is downright despicable.
On a lighter note, stuck at the airport on a flight delay, at the bar drinking overpriced Labatt’s ($7.50 a pint!) and Mitch is on Cavutto talking shite about the Illinois tax increase. Say what you want about Mitch, the dude is LUCKY, if not good. He is going to have 2 years of outstanding economic growth as working professionals and businesses flee Illinois. Just the thing to solidify a presidential run.
It was pending approval because I posted from an unfamiliar (office) computer, I suppose. It was full of some silly typos (“Winston Churchill, for instance, shows ” instead of “Winston Churchill, for instance, chose;” “less” instead of “lest”) because I dashed it off with voice recognition software, which always impeccably spells stupid homonyms.
Lines are drawn. Minds likely are unchanged. Work and then pleasure await.
1. The response to the De gustibus non disputandum est argument is: that’s precisely what we can argue about. If someone quotes Leviticus on homosexuality I have a perfect right to ask whether he sequesters his womenfolk during the Monthlies or thinks bats are birds. And to judge the answer. What’s in his head about it is as disputable as anything else, and certainly as subject to outright prevarication, fabrication, and confabulation as all other human activity. If someone says “Abortion is murder” but doesn’t treat it as he treats all other cases of murder, then his words are suspect. Whether he’s pondering long-range strategy or lying for effect is not my concern. He may remove the stigma by changing the language, or answering the charge, but not by claiming special province to make things up as he goes along, while the rest of us suspend the meaning of words to be helpful.
2. The Coventry thing is almost certainly bunkum. IIRC the charge was made by a member of the Ultra team, years later, to sell a book, and instantly denounced by others. The British acted on Enigma information all the time. The Royal Navy practically laid in wait for the German wolfpacks, and eventually had to back of some to keep from giving the game away. It’s just highly unlikely that an attack like the big one at Coventry would be waved through just to protect Ultra. Plus the British fighter defense was already a marvel of efficiency thanks to radar and an astute marshaling of its outnumbered forces, so considerable success would not have been surprising. It just didn’t get the job done that night.
Business will flee Indiana once match is gone and someone with the balls to fix the unemployment insurance fund issue and repay the Feds their $2 billion is forced to act.
Paddy, I’m not saying that Mitch is right. I tend to agree with you, and think that he has largely pulled a Jedi mind trick with regards to the business environment in Indiana. We are not a low tax state, and arguably our costs are higher than Illinois, at least before this tax increase.
But Mitch does do good PR, which is what he was up to on Cavuto.
Here’s an idea: how ’bout this time we wait until there actually are jobs created in Indiana before we start crowing about them? Y’know, just for the novelty.
It’s Illinois, not Indonesia; 98.5% of the decent jobs, if any, will come with the person already in that job attached. (Those employees, by the way, will discover their sales taxes have increased 17% and their average state income tax by 13%. Presumably their lucky, peripatetic, entrepreneurial employers don’t pay personal taxes.) Existing Hoosiers get to pick up an extra shift at the diner, or pick up a second job as a receptionist, or pick up trash in the parking lot.
It’s not nothing, considering what’s become of the state’s economy over the past six years, but it reminds us that the language still recognizes a distinction between PR and Utter BS, however small.
Doghouse: I don’t understand what statistics you are using to determine sales tax. Indiana’s sales taxes are generally lower than Illinois. For example. the sales tax in Chicago is over 10%, highest in the country.
Yeah, our income tax WAS slightly higher (3.4 to 3.0 percent), but that amounts to $200 a year for someone making $50k. After yesterday, Illinois is 5%. That amounts to $800 a year for the same person.
You neglected to mention property tax rates. While these are determined at a county basis, most of our population incurs tax rates that are probably less than half of the going rate for most of the population of Illinois.
Paul, outside of the Chicago area, Illinois’ sales tax is 6.25%. They allow local municipalities to add on local sales taxes as well, but many municipalities are at 6.25%.
If I’m not mistaken, it was a tax increase by Cook County that got Chicago’s sales tax over 10%, and I believe that they rescinded that increase. I believe that they are back to something like 9%.
Regarding property taxes, my experience coming over from Illinois is that they’re similar. I pay about the same over here as I was paying over there. The one monkey wrench is that, again, different counties tax businesses in different ways. Cook County had a reputation for sticking it to businesses, and having lower homeowner taxes as a result. I was coming over from a different county that had a reputation for being more business friendly, but with higher taxes for homeowners.
Regarding the income tax, you also need to account for local “option” income taxes in Indiana. For example, if you are in Indianapolis, you pay an income tax rate that is pretty close to where Illinois is going, I believe (3.4% state plus 1.65% local, right?).
Indiana is not a low tax state. This is my main beef with Mitch. He talks about how we’re all businessy and whatnot, and I don’t think that it is true. If I were him, I would have been pushing hard to get rid of our state income tax, not raising the sales tax to try and lower the property tax.
Buzzcut: The state income tax rate is misleading, as that does not include the whole sales tax. After the reduction you speak of, sales taxes are now down to 9.75% in Chicago. They are 7.75% in Springfield, 8.25% in Peoria, over 8% in Joliet, over 8% in Rockford, 8.60 in East St. Louis etc. Yeah, there might be towns of 3,000 people that have 6.25% sales tax, but a tiny percentage live in these small towns, and even less people shop there.
However, your point is well taken on the addition of the local option income tax.
Regarding property taxes, I can’t speak to your experience, but I left Illinois in 2005. When I left, Will, Lake and Dupage county each had property tax rates well in excess of the 1% property tax cap which now exists here in Indiana. Additionally, friends and family of mine have confirmed that their residential rates in Cook County is easily over 2%.
I agree that Indiana is not necessarily a “low-tax” state, but we are middle of the road. Indiana’s lower average household income means less dollars available for taxation. Considering that fact, I am content with our ranking.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/27.html
The table I used–a quick check, forgive me if I in any way suggested I was writing a dissertation–gave the Illinois state rate as 6%, not 6.25 as is apparently correct as a base figure. That’s makes it a 12.5% increase rather than 13%.
My point–that when you don’t notice the methane any more it’s time to leave the barn and get some fresh air–still stands.
Paul, thanks for the explanation regarding lower incomes vs. higher taxation. I’ve always wondered how Indiana did better on those rankings than I would expect based on the raw tax rate. You explained it.
I came over from DuPage county in ’07. When I bought the house in ’04, the taxes were 1.43% of what I paid. By the time I sold, they were 2.29%. There was a massive increase in taxes in a few short years, all of it went to fund pensions. It came at a bad time for me, it really put me into a financial bind. I was making less money at work, had increasing costs due to an expanding family, and had a property tax bill that was thousands more than I expected.
That led me to look for a new job, which eventually facilitated a move across the border to the low tax nirvanna known as Indiana. ;)
The first year I lived in Indiana, my taxes were over 2% of what I paid. Luckily, we had a tax cap here in Lake County on homesteads of 2%. It saved me $500 that year.
We don’t have the same tax caps in Lake County as everywhere else, debt payments come on top of our caps, so I paid about 1.5% this year. But that’s on my assessment, which is about $50,000 higher than I paid for the house in ’07, which is kind of preposterous.
There are over 30,000 property tax assessment appeals ongoing in Lake County, and mine is one of them.
Buzz: I suspect you’ll win your appeal. You certainly make a strong case online. Ideally, you could find a house closeby that was sold in 2007 and again in 2010 to demonstrate that values have not increased significantly, but you strike me as someone who would already know that.
I have heard of Lake County being called many things, but this is the first time I have heard it referred to as nirvana.
Quite frankly, the “special” lake and st. Joes county tax caps are a blatant case of political pandering and back room dealing.
A very obvious bone thrown to Bauer and his NW Indiana cronies.
They should have exempted all pre-2007 debt service from the tax caps as it was incurred under a totally different set of rules.
This move alone would solve a great number of the tax cap short fall problems around the state.
Paddy, even with the debt exemption in Lake County, Lake County municipalities are the ones losing by far the most money to the caps. I can’t recall the exact figures, by my memory is that more than half of the savings to taxpayers from the caps went to folks in Lake County, mostly in Gary, East Chicago, and Hammond (which had property tax rates upwards of $10 per $100 assessed).
My impression is that the rest of Indiana did not need the exemption, so they did not get it.
Buzz… Can you explain why Lake County needs the extra revenue, while the rest of the state mostly does not?
I concern myself with schools and the strictures placed on schools. The lack of control they have when comes to zoning, economic development and TIF districts coupled with the limited avenues they have to generate funds has put a serious hurting on a number of schools across the state.
You have school districts around Indianapolis that are being used as a bedroom community by a larger and more powerful civil unit of government and, now, are disproportionally hit by the 1% cap because they have no industry that isn’t in a TIF district and are under the control of a zoning board that is being directed to create new populations that can be annexed by the neighboring town for income tax and user fees.
That forced growth led to the need for classroom space to be created quickly. The number one driver of school tax rates is Debt Service. When taking on debt under one taxing environment, ie ad valorem debt service property tax, and then being forced to live with tax caps leads to situations where transportation services are being discontinued and general operating funds are being transferred to cover debt.
$10 tax rates in NW Indiana wasn’t a school issue (just a quick overview shows most school tax rates in that area in the $1-$1.50 range, with an outlier at ~$2), it was a city and town issue. Exempting taxes wasn’t a helping hand, it was a political bribe.