Here’s a very amusing audio clip of Rush Limbaugh on his radio show trying to debunk global warming with the kind of arguments you would hear from some ignorant blowhard in an AOL chat room. Of course, that’s because that is both Limbaugh’s identity and his target audience.
May 05 2012
Limbaugh Debunks Global Warming
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
About the Author
51 comments
1 ping
Skip to comment form ↓
Doug Little
May 5, 2012 at 10:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m sorry I couldn’t get past the bit where he says that we don’t know the age of the earth. What a fucking moron.
Spanish Inquisitor
May 5, 2012 at 10:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
ummm, isn’t the point that as “stewards” we’re not doing a very good job of “protecting and guarding”?
The ending was one of those rare occasions where I welcomed a break for advertisements.
teawithbertrand
May 5, 2012 at 10:20 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So…Rush thinks history began on the day he was born?
StevoR
May 5, 2012 at 10:35 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wait a sec, lemme guess Global Warming* is supposedly false because Limbaugh claims its promoted by “sluts”, right? ;-)
I’m sure Sandra Fluke like the unabomber and uh ALLLLLlLL Gooooooreeeeee (TM) believes in HIRGO right?
+++++
* Or as I prefer to call it Human Induced Rapid Global Overheating (HIRGO) because warming sounds too misleadingly mild and “anthropogenic” is a technical weasel word whereas the HIRGO acronym is a direct descriptive. (Whyz yes I do like alliteration y’noticed? ;-) )
StevoR
May 5, 2012 at 10:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Limbaugh : “Where did you aquire your arrogance and vanity?”
My irony meter : BANG!!!
MikeMa
May 5, 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Limbaugh is embarrassingly wrong on a subject…again. Hardly a story of much import. When he gets something right, or almost so, that will be worth noting.
Gasbag gasses badly.
dingojack
May 5, 2012 at 11:02 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Gasbaugh: Crap goes in and crap spews out without any kind of rumination, you can’t explain that!
Dingo
regexp
May 5, 2012 at 11:11 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Hey! back in the day (1990) AOL chatrooms held some pretty intelligent conversations. At least until the moderators were told to dumb it down.
(beta tester)
imback
May 5, 2012 at 11:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@#4 StevoR, the name I just came up with is Human Engendered Hockey Sticks (HE√√), short for Human Engendered Hockey Sticks Harming Our Living Environment (HE√√HOLE). (I’ve started reading Michael Mann’s new book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines.)
Michael Heath
May 5, 2012 at 11:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I was kinda strugglin’ to follow Rush Limbaugh’s verbal emissions for two reasons, he’s an idiot, and the Snorgees T-shirt ad to the right with the young lady in a white T-shirt which stated “Geek is the new sexy” was very distracting.
Mr. Limbaugh is unfortunately in the mainstream of conservatism and libertarians with power when it comes to their false assertion that what science confidently and monolithically acknowledges as fact is instead propaganda. More evidence of infantile nihilism coupled to a strong does of denialism.
Mr. Limbaugh also contradicts his own argument here. On the one hand he argues even if we’re causing warming, we have no control over warming. Huh!?! This is the intelligence of a primary leader of the conservative movement?
A nice bit of projection claiming that science is, “all smoke and mirrors”; especially apt given his predilection to chomping on a stogie.
Michael Heath
May 5, 2012 at 11:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Our farmers in northwestern Michigan (lower pennisula) had the worst Spring since we’ve formally tracked the effects on weather to our agricultural products. This winter was so warm the very health of our trees were threatened, not just the harvest from our fruit and maple trees (syrup from the maples, we also are leader in the global cherry market and also grow a lot of apples here).
That’s because it wasn’t sufficiently cold enough in early-winter to trigger the trees to squeeze out the water from inside the trees’ cells. So if we’d had a very cold snap (twenties below zero) for a couple of straight nights which we normally have in late-Jan.-early-March, the health of our trees would have been severely compromised. That didn’t happen, instead the winter remained warm through-out with only a handful of very cold days rather than groupings of adjacent cold nights like we used to experience. But I wouldn’t be surprised if sometime in the next couple of decades we swaths of trees.
We also had a 100 degree swing in March. We went from from minus 17 F on March 5th to highs in the 70s starting on the 14th to a record 83 F on the 21st, the previous record highs were in the high-50s/low-60s. Fortunately the cold snap was only one night given the vulnerability of the trees. We set nine new high records this past March.
abb3w
May 5, 2012 at 1:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
For anyone who argues this sort of thing on the Internet, I’d point out this handy resource.
I’m not going to even TRY listening to Limbaugh.
KG
May 5, 2012 at 1:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Yes, he reminds me of that idiot who said in 1980:
(At its peak, Mt. St Helens was releasing around 2,000 tonnes/day of sulphur dioxide. More than an order of magnitude less than autos.)
and in 1981:
(They don’t: in hot weather they produce some volatile organic compounds, which can exacerbate the production of photochemical smog from vehicle and power plant emissions. VOCs can also be derived from many other sources.)
Now what was his name again…
Oh, yes. Ronald Wilson Reagan.
Reagan appointed industry stooges James Watt and Anne Gorsuch as heads of the Department of Interior and the EPA. In the administration’s first year, there was a 79 percent decline in the number of enforcement cases filed from regional offices to EPA headquarters, and a 69 percent decline in the number of cases filed from the EPA to the Department of Justice.
Watt eventually had to resign after defending a panel that authorised coal-leasing from federal lands in these words: “I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent.” Gorsuch resigned after Reagan’s adminstration failed in an attempt to prevent Congress obtaining EPA records as part of an investigation into corruption. She was cited for contempt of Congress during this row.
Anneliese
May 5, 2012 at 1:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I don’t know if Limbaugh ever gets anything right but if he does it is probably by sheer accident.
Michael Heath
May 5, 2012 at 1:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
KG,
There is no question President Reagan’s legacy will deteriorate over time as the full impact of global warming starts to sink in beyond those up on science and where we’ll have the benefit of hindsight to more accurately parse out blame. I’m also confident I was the first person in Ed’s venue to point this out years ago while also repeatedly pointing out Reagan’s biggest failure was his energy policy. From my perspective however President Obama’s current performance has him doing worse than Reagan on this matter given what we know now vs. what we knew then coupled to the increasing threat and the relative lack of will by Democrats in Reagan’s era to attack global warming – “will” in regards to the level of energy and political capital they invested then, which was trivial.
The rest of your diatribe once again reveals your unwillingness or incapability of rationally gauging the performance of an administration and doing it consistently across all administrations or other world leaders. Cherry-picking and fallacies of balance comes to mind.
Posts like the above one by you only have you digging that hole ever-deeper, like misconstruing the Watt legacy relative to the overall Reagan Administration and its performance. Hint – Mr. Watt didn’t last long nor was he replaced with an equivalent or worse. Watt also didn’t define the Administration but instead its worst aspect, which all Administrations suffer from – including the current one. The more relevant question is how many bad apples were there, how much influence did they have, and how were they dealt with from Reagan and his senior people; where even that’s a secondary matter relative to the Administration’s actual results. Where again we confront results considered successful in spite of attempts by denialists to argue otherwise – simply because the facts aren’t on their side: killing stagflation, robust GDP growth, and a far safer world without any wars or even major conflicts to arrive at all these major results.
zmidponk
May 5, 2012 at 3:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So, let’s see. The core of Limbaugh’s argument seems to be basically ‘how do you know the current temperature is normal?’ The response is that this is utterly irrelevant. Even supposing the climate in the past was much warmer, which is basically what he seems to be implying, we know from the evidence that it is our actions that are pushing the temperature back up towards those higher levels. We also know, from the evidence, that these rising temperatures cause adverse effects to us. So, if he’s trying to argue that global warming is overhyped because it was warmer in the past, even if I accept that assertion without even attempting to address whether it’s actually true or not, if we don’t do anything about it, as George Carlin said, the planet’s fine, but we’re fucked.
KG
May 5, 2012 at 5:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath,
Backing any tyrant, terrorist or torturer who happened to be anti-Soviet.
Selling arms to Iran to fund an illegal terrorist war.
Nearly getting us all killed through his fuckwitted “evil empire” rhetoric – as David Hoffman shows in War Scare, chapter 3 of The Dead Hand.
Failing for years to see that Gorbachev was sincere – unlike Thatcher.
Missing opportunities to get rid of the vast majority of Soviet nuclear arms through his cretinous Star Wars obsession.
Doing everything he could to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the rich.
Repeated racist dog-whistles.
It’s not me who’s cherry-picking.
Posts like the above one by you only have you digging that hole ever-deeper, like misconstruing the Watt legacy relative to the overall Reagan Administration and its performance. Hint – Mr. Watt didn’t last long nor was he replaced with an equivalent or worse.
Watt had to go because of the disgusting quote I gave – Reagan didn’t get rid of him, or Gorsuch, willingly or because of their anti-environmental views. Nor did his anti-environmental stance change after they were forced to resign. Rita Lavelle, another of his EPA appointees, was convicted of perjury in 1984 after lying to Congress during a corruption investigation. Moves to weaken the Clean Water Act climaxed in 1987 when he vetoed a reauthorization of the act – but had his veto overwhelmingly overridden by Congress. There’s no doubt that on this, as on giivng tax breaks to the rich, he’d have done much worse if not restrained by a Democrat-controlled house and by moderate congressional Republicans throughout his terms.
It’s not me who’s cherry-picking.
The end of stagflation and resumption of GDP growth were due to falling oil prices, over which Reagan had no significant influence.
The far safer world was due to internal changes in the Soviet Union, with their origins long before Reagan came to office. As for “without any wars” – tell that to the Central American peasants tortured and murdered by the thugs and terrorists he funded, armed and supported. Tell it to the victims of the Khmer Rouge terrorists he continued to support. Tell it to the victims of RENAMO in Mozambique and UNITA in Angola, backed by the apartheid regime in South Africa which he protected. Tell it to the million dead in the war of aggression by Iraq against Iran for which he supplied arms, even though it was known Iraq was using chemical weapons. Pah!
It’s not me who’s cherry-picking.
I agree with you – Obama’s record on global warming, as on many other issues such as unaccountable executive power, Guantanamo, and the use of drones, is utterly shameful. You can’t quote a single word I’ve said in his support, beyond that the alternatives are even worse.
Michael Heath
May 5, 2012 at 6:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
KG:
More YEC equivalence denialism. The monetary and fiscal policies of the 1980s were enormous, consequential, painful, and recognized – not denied, by every economist who schooled me in both business schools I attended, under- and grad school. Along with every economist and economically literate historian I’ve read since. You’re really out there, beyond the margins of where I could of previously imagined anyone reaching. It appears fueled by your fierce desire to falsely claim a particular person was always wrong and always evil, in spite of the reality that proves otherwise.
slc1
May 5, 2012 at 7:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Michael Heath @ #18
Actually, the credit for whipping inflation must go to Paul Volcker, the Federal Reserve Chairman, who raised interest rates to unprecedented highs which led to a recession. It was the recession that killed the inflation of the late 1970s which had reached double digit territory (remember 6 month treasury bills selling for double digit discounts).
slc1
May 5, 2012 at 8:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re KG @ #17
It should also be recalled that Saddam attacked Iran, seeing the unrest there as an open invitation to acquire additional territory. In fact, Saddam’s attack probably saved the reign of the mullahs in Iran, who were on the ropes as allies of the Ayatollah Khomeini were being assassinated weekly. It caused the populace to rally behind it against the foreign aggressor. The current regime in Iran owes Saddam big time.
tsig
May 5, 2012 at 9:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The crap comes in the crap goes out, you can’t explain htat.
jnorris
May 5, 2012 at 9:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Its true, Rush doesn’t know anything. And all of his show is smoke and mirrors.
Area Man
May 5, 2012 at 11:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Sounds like internal wingnut logic. In Limbaugh’s mind, regulating carbon emissions is unthinkable. Ergo, we have no control over it. His ideology is just too inflexible to accept the possibility.
shoeguy
May 6, 2012 at 12:14 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It seems that the “red” states are suffering the brunt of the most severe weather caused by climate change. We have to keep the government from bailing out the ocean front property owners as the seas rise.
KG
May 6, 2012 at 3:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath,
Well, I’m inclined to think your reading is largely confined to those who agree with you, and where it isn’t, you misinterpret them so they are – as you do with Hoffman. I’m not in the least surprised that business school economists cheer-lead for Reaganomics – they are in the business of supporting whatever big business wants, and Reaganomics was all about giving big business what it wants. But here’s wikipedia on Paul Krugman on Reaganomics:
Admittedly, Krugman attributes the improvement under Reagan to Volcker and the business cycle rather than oil, but the same article shows the steep fall in oil prices, from around $60/barrel in 1980 to around $20/barrel in 1985. Are you seriously pretending that was not important? Or that Reagan had anything much to do with it? I would think ordinary supply and demand mechanisms were responsible – after the oil shocks of the 1970s, which had a lot to do with causing stagflation, demand fell and supply rose, cutting the price.
So let’s be clear, are you accusing Paul Krugman of “YEC equivalent denialism”? I’d back him over you or any business school hack as an economic thinker, myself.
sunsangnim
May 6, 2012 at 4:11 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think he just admitted that it’s warming and evolution is true, but it’s hard to tell from that word salad.
Ichthyic
May 6, 2012 at 6:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is no question President Reagan’s legacy will deteriorate over time
talk about living in denial.
dude, his legacy was deteriorated THEN, not later.
he was a disgrace THEN, it’s just that people like you are VERY slow to come around to overcoming your programming to see it.
Ichthyic
May 6, 2012 at 6:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Heath’s love affair with Reagan is the most humorous thing on this site, no question.
Ichthyic
May 6, 2012 at 6:15 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
More evidence of
infantile nihilism coupled to a strong does of denialism.authoritarianism.FTFY
democommie
May 6, 2012 at 6:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There is no such thing as Global Warming, so there CAN’T be no such thing as Android Propagated Global Warming! And if there is it’s ‘cuz allathem darkskinned savages in Asia and the country of Africa burn wood and coal an cow dung, ‘stead of good’ol MurKKKan oil which is cleaner than BABY JESUS’ POOP!
KG
May 6, 2012 at 7:03 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I find it rather sad, actually. Heath is clearly a man of considerable intelligence, who just can’t face up to the evil of what he supported in his youth.
Michael Heath
May 6, 2012 at 11:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
slc1 writes:
First I specifically referred to Volcker’s successful policies via my reference to monetary policies, so it’s false of you to claim I ignored him. Second Reagan and the attendant Congress’ fiscal contractionary fiscal policies complemented and amplified the Fed’s effort, so it’s also false to move the goal posts from my stagflation reference to inflation to avoid the fact Reagan and Congresses’ successes.
This economic period was one of intense study for me in my formal education because a couple of my MSU econ profs were at the advent of developing mathematical models government was purchasing to drive fiscal polices. The late-70s/early-80s stringently tested their theories and models since the troubles then were so complex and unusual (inflation coupled to contraction). Prior to this period fiscal policy was driven by mere guesswork and surveys of economists. Also prior to that period Monetarism was novel and considered radical; coming out of this period economists generally conceded that Monetarism by the Fed coupled to Keynesianism fiscal policy by the executive and Congress were complementary, while also incorporating the successful factors of supply side economics into fiscal policy prescriptions where they’ve abandoned its most well-known components as abject failures.
Our conundrum in this period is the Republicans’ obstructionism of Keynesian fiscal policy applications, in spite of those prescriptions coming attached to the successful aspects of supply side economics (Bruce Bartlett provides the perspective on this history). So the Fed is increasingly challenged to extend its policies well beyond what they were ever previously expected to do. Paul Krugman had an excellent article in last week’s New York Times that reveals that Ben Bernanke the professor would have done far more which would help than Bernanke the Chairman has actually done. While I think Krugman is correct, he overestimates the power of the Chairman while ignoring how radical it would be to take Krugman and Prof. Bernanke’s prescriptions in the current political environment.
Michael Heath
May 6, 2012 at 11:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
shoeguy:
Our record setting warm winter here in northern Michigan has devastated our fruit tree yields for this growing season, which is our biggest agricultural product in this region of Michigan. And as I noted earlier, the very health of our trees was at risk the entire winter, not just this growing season’s crops.
We’re also seeing a devastation of conifers in some of the mountain states due to both the winter survival rates of bark beetles, and that they’re now procreating twice per growing season in some regions – leading to not only exponential growth, but growth sufficient enough to kill the trees they feed from. The reaction is more clear-cutting which leads to ecological devastation, where clear-cutting may be the prudent thing given the fire hazard presented by dead conifer stands.
So while it’s true those red states devastated by drought have already suffered from climate change, suffering extends beyond those red states.
Michael Heath
May 6, 2012 at 12:05 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Ichthyic writes:
Another example of YEC-like thinking within the liberal tribe.
First you misrepresent my position. I don’t have a love affair with Reagan; I both despise conservatism while also consistently noting the failures of his tenure. However I do not deny Reagan’s successes some liberals wish weren’t true since it demands they make arguments which aren’t dependent on fallacies as we see here.
Instead I acknowledge, consistent with the experts, that the Reagan presidency was a generally successful one. So here we see YEC-like denialism on your part by avoiding the consensus positions of experts. And third your reliance on fallacies rather than argue the merits, also just like a YEC. What’s especially sad is to see liberals sacrifice the greatest strength of liberalism and instead depend on the worst aspects of conservatism – their inability to think critically and avoidance of reality.
dingojack
May 6, 2012 at 12:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Psst – Mr Heath’s absolute paragon of ‘Presidential success’ is St. Ronnie of Altzheimers, who is, by his own admission, merely 17th out of a class of 44.
Yep, I’d call that hugely successful wouldn’t you? – USA, USA, USA, we’re number 10 & etc.
@@
Dingo
KG
May 6, 2012 at 12:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Since Krugman, as shown in the article from which I quoted, disagrees with you completely with regard to Reagan’s role in the recovery of the 1980s, evidently you consider him guilty of “YEC-like denialism”. Reagan’s policies were in fact in direct line to those of the modern religious right: the attacks on welfare, on the rights of workers, and on environmental protection, the tax hand-outs for the rich, the covert and not-so-covert racism, the increased military spending, the misuse of executive power (Iran-Contra ring any bells, Michael?), the “war on drugs” and consequent rise in the number of prison inmates, and the antipathy to secularism.
Your claim that there is an expert consensus that Reagan’s Presidency was successful is either delusional or dishonest. I have already shown that Krugman disagrees on the economy, despite your false claim on that issue above. Here is what wikipedia has to say about his legacy:
Reagan had a good deal of luck: in being President during a recovery that, as Krugman says, was only to be expected; in being President when the Soviet Union’s internal problems reached crisis level – and in that state turning to a radical reformer determined to end the Cold War, rather than a demagogue willing to exploit it. But he used this luck to set the USA on the path it has followed since – of rapidly growing economic inequality justified in terms of “the free market”, of an astounding rise in the prison population, of increased intrusion of religion into politics. Today’s Republican Party and the threat it poses to the whole world is his legacy.
Michael Heath
May 6, 2012 at 1:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
KG:
Me in response:
KG:
No, I’m accusing you of YEC-equivalent denialism. Paul Krugman’s argument doesn’t remotely match your’s, but it’s a fundamentally weak one as well as I show below. Your depending solely on an admitted partisan and political ideologue such as Paul Krugman while I argue the consensus position of economists in general doesn’t help your defense that you don’t think like a YEC. I do consider Krugman’s arguments – his arguments the ’09 stimulus was insufficient was obviously spot-on even during policy development, but I’m also cognizant of the fact he’s not a dispassionate expert. Instead Krugman is passionate regarding his political agenda where his bias frequently overwhelms is talent as an economist.
Re Krugman’s article you present in defense of the assertion I rebutted and present here again, i.e., that oil prices alone led to the U.S. recovery, not monetary policy, not fiscal policy, not other factors like the growth of the technology sector (which I didn’t mention previously). Well let’s parse Krugman’s 2004 premises, like this one:
Hmm, that’s certainly not true in this recovery. So while his observation can be true in simple recessions (deflation and contraction), we know for a fact it’s not always true like when we encounter a different type of contraction, like inflation coupled to contraction experienced in the era Krugman is referencing or in recessions aggravated by a financial crisis where the labor market was fundamentally weak prior to the downturn. So this premise alone is entirely unconvincing and in fact instead points to Krugman framing his premises in a way that’s not accurate to the conditions The Fed, Reagan, and the 97th Congress faced. His disingenuity is noted and to be condemned. Not because Krugman obviously didn’t have the 2007-2012 lessons in 2004, but because he misrepresented the challenges faced in ’81 and ’82 to protect his go-to premises which didn’t apply in that particular recession because conditions were different.
Krugman goes on:
I agree that Reagan’s economic doctrine wasn’t validated during his tenure, I’ve not only never argued otherwise, but vociferously point that out. But let’s also be clear, Reagan’s stated preferences were not what what was employed for much of his administration because of compromises he made with Congress, which was dominated by Democrats. We need to distinguish rhetoric from behavior. Another fact is that the Reagan’s doctrine at the start of his tenure was the exact antidote needed, you can call it luck and believe he wouldn’t have argued for a prescription contra his doctrine, but that would arguably ring false though I think it’s an arguable point given how close his actions were from the ’80 campaign. ‘Ring false’ precisely because the middle and the end of his tenure had him signing bills directly contra his 1976 and 1980 campaign rhetoric, passing six tax hikes, stimulative spending which worked, and defending progressive tax schemes.
Krugman:
Here Krugman dishonestly, by way of being disingenuous, tries to avoid the reality that the Reagan era did enjoy robust GDP growth well beyond the ’83-’84 spike, like the fact we strong growth in the late-80s along even more robust growth in the 1990s after a quick recession in the H.W. Bush era (not his fault). In fact it was supply-sider Bruce Bartlett’s advice in H.W. Bush’s reign to raise taxes rather than increase the deficit that helped spur growth in the 1990s. In addition, Bartlett is one of the most considered voices who support the Democrats’ stimulus efforts in this go-round. So here we see a reformed supply-sider supporting liberals to do what works while Krugman plays dishonest political games. This article presents Krugman the dishonest partisan, not Krugman the respected economist. And yet you think this is economic argument? More examples of how your political bent is totally divorced from what experts understand.
Krugman concludes:
I’m a Keynesian, as were all my profs, contra your effort to mispresent them as somehow not part of the mainstream when in fact they were at the leading edge of what is the mainstream now – a merging of Monetarism with Keynesianism while not denying the importance of the supply line by focusing only on the demand line (aggregate demand). So just like we concede the fact of evolution, we concede the fact of what Keynes first observed and we observe now. But the fact for ’81 and ’82 is more complex, the recession Reagan and the 97th Congress inherited was not typical given we had inflation coupled to economic contraction, the latter which drove high unemployment. You can’t solve both simultaneously, the fact both were solved in a few short years in a serial fashion was not only a resounding success for the Reagan Administration, but also for mainstream economic thought – which the current Republicans oppose which explains why we’re not enjoying the robust recovery we enjoyed in the 1980s. The fact Krugman misrepresents this era by ignoring the rarity of this challenge is an indictment on his favoring partisanship over scholarship.
The fact you’d use an ahistorical opinion piece which doesn’t even support your own argument, rather than an evidentiary article which enjoys consensus support is another example of your YEC-like thinking.
KG:
Again with the YEC-like ignorance. Economics is usually its own department and is an aspect of social studies. Business students belong to the business school, an entirely different department which in my case meant long hikes to a different part of the campus from where most of my classes took place. In addition the professors I mentioned mostly counseled government, not businesses – back then that was both sides of the aisle. MSU is generally considered a liberal institution, which it self-identifies as. The fact they considered right-wing ideas and discarded with some, the Laffer curve, while incorporating others – Milton Friedman’s contributions to Monetarism (not his arguments regarding fiscal policy), is an example of why liberalism governs better as long as it doesn’t descend into the type of tribalism you practice. In fact just this past year I read this book by an MSU economist [my review] which is a virtual blue-print of what most Democrats currently argue – higher taxes and prudent government spending to spur sustainable growth.
jws1
May 6, 2012 at 1:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Heath: I really, really like you writing here. But for fuckssake man, Mr. Reagan actively supported terrorists. I don’t give a damn what else he did, even if that included lollipops and rainbows for everyone. Support killers = piece of shit.
slc1
May 6, 2012 at 1:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Michael Heath
Relative to Krugman’s analysis of the 2009 stimulus package not being large enough, that was also the view of Martin Feldstein, the Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the Reagan administration. In fact, Feldstein stated at the time that a second such stimulus package would be needed and, given the weakness in the economy, his analysis appears right on.
Michael Heath
May 6, 2012 at 1:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
dingojack writes:
Again with the misrepresentations of my comments. I assume because you’re another denialist who consciously or unconsciously realizes you can’t make a fact-based meritorious argument so you instead rely on fallacies. I.e., I’ve never claimed the Reagan presidency was the “absolute paragon of success” nor have I ever claimed he was “hugely successful”.
I instead point out his administration’s performance is considered generally successful relative to other administrations. Here’s precisely what I stated in this thread prior to your post:
I’m reminded of global warming denialists claiming we don’t have to worry about climate change now because it’s been warm before. Where they fail to acknoweledge the very scientists who are worried about climate change now are the ones who discovered it’s been warm before. I.e., my being the one to point out the Reagan’s presidency aggregates to 17th best out of 44, where you then falsely assert my noting this has me claiming he’s the ‘paragon’ and ‘hugely successful’.
I think I’m confident concluding I’m now shooting fish in the barrel. Given the barrel is filled only with liberal fish makes this an unpleasant task. That’s because I expect more from liberals, like not arguing exactly like conservative denialists which we see from you, KG, and Ithycic.
Michael Heath
May 6, 2012 at 1:45 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
jws1 writes:
I would argue that’s a fatally dysfunctional method of assessing an entire presidency. I can cherry-pick every single presidency and find something equally damning or far worse relative to the impact on humanity. What the experts do instead is consider the performance of an administration in its entirety, with the appropriate weighting relative to how their performance impacted people’s lives.
In this case you pick an event which we can’t even tie to Mr. Reagan. Yes his admnistration is to be condemned and him for having these people on his staff, but this was a fairly trivial event relative to other issues the Reagan Administration worked on, like the recession he inherited, the root causes that made that recession so insufferable, and the Cold War. Each of which was far more momentous than the Iran-Contra scandal.
From my perspective you’re attempting to justify condemning an entire presidency without having to apply your standard to every other presidency. If you fairly did so, it wold reveal how absurd your approach is. In fact I think Iran-Contra is trivial compared to how FDR himself ordered the internment of Japanese-Americans, where I somehow still conclude in spite of this grave crime that FDR was our greatest president. Precisely because just like Reagan, this crime didn’t define the entire FDR presidency, no more than Iran-Contra defines the Reagan presidency.
In addition while I think President Bush should be in jail because he tortured, which is also far worse than Iran-Contra, it also doesn’t define Bush’s presidency. Instead his incompetence at managing both domestic and foreign policy does, where torture is merely one horrendous event out of many.
Michael Heath
May 6, 2012 at 2:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
For those who argue the Reagan presidency was not successful but instead a disaster, I offer the following advice given how obviously weak your arguments currently are. Accept rather than deny or avoid the fact the consensus view favors Reagan. Confront those successes and compellingly pick them part and/or argue the framing is insufficient to gauge his presidency where we must expand our framing which subsequently reveals a failed presidency. Avoidance, cherry-picking, strawmen, fallacy of balance, and misattribution are not compelling premises.
This approach is consistent with the scientific method, where an emergent explanatory model is faced with directly confronting, not avoiding, the consensus explanation if one exists, and showing how this new model beats the other in explaining the facts.
Here’s a relevant example; my pointing out that the future will have us judging recent presidents more harshly on their energy policies and mitigation efforts regarding global warming, including President Reagan. That we don’t currently weight energy policy sufficiently since science first revealed the threat of climate change, IIRC during the Johnson Administration.
So in this case I argue that our current framing to assess presidents is insufficiently narrow, where a broadening does Reagan’s legacy harm where I also think the enormity of this challenge and the threat guarantees the Bush presidency as one of the worst ever even if he’d been successful in all his other efforts. So I predict this factor will cause Reagan through Bush’s presidencies stock to drop over time, where Obama’s efforts will result in the same unless he figures out a way to make more happen. (I weight this factor more heavily for each subsequent president since our confidence in the threat grows and we directly observe the harm which is already occurring.)
KG
May 6, 2012 at 2:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael Heath,
What a joke: those who disagree with you are “political ideologues”, while those who agree are the “consensus position”. You really do completely lack self-insight. My quote from wikepedia on Reagan’s legacy quoted another economist, Mark Weisbrot, but as he disagrees with you, no doubt he’s just another “political ideologue”. Economics is one of the most politicised disciplines there is, and pretending that there’s a consensus on intensely political issues such as Reagan’s legacy is just bizarre.
I admit my claim that the economic recovery under Reagan was down to the fall in the oil price does not correspond to Krugman’s, nor did I claim otherwise. I admit that it was too simple; I can’t see how that fall have failed to help a considerable amount, though – and it coincided more of less exactly with Reagan’s first term.
Krugman says rapid growth is normal in recovery from a recssion. You say, not in the current one. True (for the USA and Europe – not for China, Russia, India, Brazil, but of course foreigners hardly count in your world) – but in this one, oil prices have not shown a sustained decrease, have they? You say:
What other recessions similar to the 1970s are you comparing it with? It’s typical that you accuse Krugman of dishonesty, just as you accuse me of denialism – evidently anyone who disagrees with Michael Heath must be dishonest or irrational.
As I noted, he was constrained by Congress throughout his term. But it’s very odd to give him credit for following policies which he did not wish to follow. Seems like luck rather than judgement. If all you are claiming is that the US economy was in considerably better shape in January 1989 than in January 1981 then of course I agree with you – but I understood us to be arguing about how far Reagan deserves credit for that.
And in ’81 and ’82 (and ’83 and ’84) you had rapidly falling oil prices, plus an inflow of foreign direct investment because the oil-rich states were looking for ways to employ their accumulated funds. Again, lucky Ron.
It was you, if you recall, who said:
So if I thought you were talking about economists working in business schools, it’s because that’s what you told me. And I note again that it’s simply false that “every economist” you’ve read agrees with you – unless you haven’t read Krugman – because Krugman doesn’t.
dingojack
May 6, 2012 at 2:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Michael – So 17th out of 44* is ‘successful’? Good to know you’re aiming for mere mediocrity. We’re no. 10 & etc.
Dingo
—–
* your metric, not mine
Michael Heath
May 6, 2012 at 2:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
KG writes:
I didn’t merely accuse Krugman and you of dishonesty, I specifically pointed out the dishonesty. And yes, your argument fails even remedial argumentation standards, so they are by definition irrational given their reliance on fallacies.
I can respect a cogent argument that proposes the Reagan legacy was not successful. But I will not respect a really bad argument on any topic, especially when the advocate misrepresents a public figure, a sin I find far worse than defaming a friend or relative.
KG
May 6, 2012 at 2:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Micahel Heath,
No, you claimed to point out the dishonesty. I raised points and asked you some questions about those claims, which you have chosen not to answer. I will pose them again in brief:
1) Do you accept that the rapid fall in oil prices, and the inflow of foreign direct investment, made the economic situation when Reagan entered office considerably easier?
2) With which other recessions are you comparing that of the 1970s?
3) Have you not read Krugman, or were you wrong when you claimed that all the economists you had read agreed with you?
Then you’re a pompous ass. But I deny that I have at any point deliberately misrepresented Reagan, and indeed you havce completely failed to answer my characterisation of his legacy at home (I have dealt elsewhere with his uncritical support of tyrants, terrorists and torturers abroad). I will repeat that characterisation of his legacy at homea:
The only point you have even attempted to contest is that related to the environment – and that only by the absurdity of denying Reagan’s responsibility for the acts of his apppointees.
That is absolutely vile. While I agree that FDR’s internment of Japanese Americans was an appalling injustice, it does not begin to compare with the – completely unnecessay – funding and political support of terrorists, torturers and tyrants. You obviously lack any moral decency whatever.
slc1
May 6, 2012 at 2:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Re Michael Heath @ #41
In fact I think Iran-Contra is trivial compared to how FDR himself ordered the internment of Japanese-Americans, where I somehow still conclude in spite of this grave crime that FDR was our greatest president.
There can be no doubt or question that our greatest president was Abraham Lincoln. The crisis he faced in 1861 was far more serious then the one that Roosevelt faced in 1933 or 1941 for that matter. Lincoln is a textbook example of the aphorism that nothing is more important to a commander in military matters then a find mind. Lincoln, a man with no military experience, education, or training became a great war leader and outstanding military strategist (better then any of his generals, with the exception of Grant and better then any of the generals on the other side) who completely outclassed his opponent, Jefferson Davis, graduate of West Point, participant in the Mexican War, Secretary of War in the Filmore Administration.
Michael Heath
May 6, 2012 at 3:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
KG writes to me:
Heh. I’m comfortable with my position and therefore won’t be responding to you anymore in this thread, your certainly not challenging my points in a manner that helps me better inform myself and adapt to better positions – so you’ve become a waste of my time.
KG
May 6, 2012 at 3:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m sure that is so; people without any moral decency generally are.
Michael Heath
May 6, 2012 at 9:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
KG cherry-picks me just like a YEC:
KG then responds:
What I wrote in its proper context:
I wasn’t discussing my position in its totality, but specific to your argument, which was made in clear in the portion you avoided. I’m frequently adapting my positions to compelling arguments as I noted previously which again, you denied existed or purposefully left out – either way – equivalent to what YECs do – a failure in character or denial due to avoidance/delusion.
The fact your argument here has you continually misrepresenting others like myself and President Reagan, nay depending on the misrepresentation of others, is indicative regarding why your failing to change this mind who remains ensconced with the consensus view of both economists and historians regarding the legacy of the Reagan administration, the attendant Congresses, and the leaders of the Fed during this period.
Pierce R. Butler
May 8, 2012 at 8:38 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Doug Little @ # 1: … we don’t know the age of the earth.
Despite repeated requests, the earth has never shown us its long-form birth certificate.
Toner BROTHER TN-2120
June 7, 2012 at 1:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Toner BROTHER TN-2120…
[...]Limbaugh Debunks Global Warming | Dispatches from the Culture Wars[...]…