Krugman: Modern Republicans are Proudly Ignorant

In the NYT, Paul Krugman sums up the substance of modern Republicans:

Know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Avatar of Planeten Paultje
    Planeten Paultje

    I immediately thought of a few other "real men" statements:

    "Real men don't use mice" is one and "Real men don't use color monitors" is a (less well-known) other. Considering what happened in that department, I entertain a shimmer of hope that the GOP may yet wake up from its self induced coma. It would be nice if it happened *before* the world is FUBAR.

  2. Avatar of Dean
    Dean

    Got a link?

  3. Avatar of Erich Vieth
    Erich Vieth

    And Republicans are proud non-planners:

    Seems to me when you get right down to it, a lot of what's gone wrong in the economy, if not the country, stems from the failure of the market to accurately price risk. It sounds obscure, but if we don't get this right, we're looking at a shampoo economy — bubble, bust, repeat — for years to come. Not to mention environmental degradation and war.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/the

  4. Avatar of grumpypilgrim
    grumpypilgrim

    The problem of simple-minded thinking is widespread in human culture — likely a consequence of the fact that humans evolved in a world where simple-minded thinking worked relatively well. The problem is that today's world is far more complex than it was when our ancestors lived in trees. Modern problems often display symptoms that are very distant from their causes. Simple-minded thinking focuses on the symptom, often producing a "solution" that actually exacerbates the underlying cause.

    Examples of this abound. Communities build new roads to reduce traffic congestion, commuters notice the shorter commute times and move into the area, traffic congestion worsens. Communities build low-income housing, poor people in other cities see the opportunity for low-income housing and move to the area, the community's population of low-income residents increases. Americans are attacked by terrorists, Republicans convince Americans to fight terrorism with extreme violence, more people around the globe hate Americans for being too violent, more people around the globe become eager to kill Americans.

  5. Avatar of Tim Hogan
    Tim Hogan

    Go find Roger Simon's "The Great Roob Revolution" (it's out of print) and you'll see where this all came from. Curse you Roger Simon!

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