Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktPerry’s doubling down on his “Social Security is a Ponzi scheme” is a familiar tactic. Perhaps he wishes he had not published that in his book, but once he did, he now seems committed to defending the idea and the language. He also shows this same committment to tuition assistance that may benefit illegals in Texas and the wisdom of Texas’ execution policy. To be fair, he has backed off on the HPV vaccination kerfuffle, but he’s not backed off very far.
He reminds me of George W. in this personality trait, although he’s like GW on steroids. This trait keeps ringing a bell–why is this so familiar?. It can’t just be GW and Rick Perry.
Perhaps this is a western ranching state, macho male, “never complain, never explain” kind of cowboy bravado. That’s it! I’ve heard this a million times.–people who pride themselves on never changing their ideas, their language, their minds lest they appear weak. Changing equates to weakness. No wonder that people like President Obama are so offputting to them–he’s the epitome of what a western Marlboro-man would consider a drugstore cowboy with his emphasis on nuance and air of reasonableness. In fact, he’s constantly being criticized now for being too conciliatory. [edit]
Perhaps this personality type is not a ranching state phenomena, but that’s what I’m familiar with. In California, which is certainly western, but not much ranching culture in the cities, where I was involved with all sorts of entrepreneurs (who are definitely alpha types), this type of allegiance to prior statements was very uncommon, in fact nonexistent. They could change on a dime and frequently did so, and actually prided themselves on their ability to adjust to changing conditions. In fact, the venture capitalists evaluated people on their ability to quickly abandon losing strategies and develop new strategies, without emotional damage.
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All Things in Moderation 
We have a few Texans here so I'm curious to see their response. Nice post 12Bar. I've learned more about Texas in the last couple of years than the 58 years that came before, and my mother and sister were both born there.I know at a little oil company in Midland, recycling is considered sissyish and so is turning off the lights when you leave the building. It's a small sample size though.
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12Bar:I can't think of any instance in which Obama has publicly repudiated a position he's previously taken, citing a change of mind. Maybe my memory is colored by my poltiical dislike of him, but seriously, can you think of any?I think the desire not to appear weak is a more characteristic of politicians in general than of Cowboys.
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Confession of past mistakes and bad ideas and poor thinking tend to be losing strategies in politics. Backing down appears weak, and confessing to too many flaws or mistakes is a killer to electoral politics. If Rick Perry is running for a political office (and I understand that he may be), then it makes sense to double down or continue to insist that he's right, even on ideas not necessarily popular with his base (HPV).
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Romney acting like he will "finish the fence" (which Perry strongly says is not the answer) and that he would never endorse "Perry's version of the Dream Act" was ridiculous.Everyone knows Romney to be to the left of Perry, acting like he isn't makes no sense. And Bachmann grandstanding the government needle rape of "innocent little girls' bodies" that was literally disgusting.
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Candidate Obama, in particular, had a good reason for everything he had ever done, ever. There wasn't much confession of past sins. He didn't double down on voting present or his "born alive" abortion vote or any other variety of past matter his opposition attempted to dredge up.As pretty much any candidate whose going to win the presidency will have done, he mostly focused on how totally awesome he was.
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shrink: "Everyone knows Romney to be to the left of Perry, acting like he isn't makes no sense. And Bachmann grandstanding the government needle rape of "innocent little girls' bodies" that was literally disgusting."When a candidate starts evoking rape, that's a sign their campaign is in bad shape. Might be even when unsolicited supporters start evoking it, like Cameron Diaz's speculation about the legalization of rape, if John Kerry lost in 2004. And we all know who won that election.
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kevin:he mostly focused on how totally awesome he was. I wonder if he's changed his mind about that!
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I edited my post above to better explain criticism of the President for being too conciliatory.
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Didn't Obama admit to mistakes after the Health Care debate, too much backroom dealing?
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He sure threw his pastor overboard (and his grandmother). From Black Liberation theology to oh so WASP Episcopal theology of Henry VIII and the National Cathedral, almost overnight. Tom Daschle? Backroom dealing? Say it ain't so.
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And remember Bush's exit interview somewhere when he was asked if he had any regrets regarding his Preisency and he couldn't really think of anything.
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funny, or,The Decider's Omniciency
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BTW, while Social Security is not, in fact, a Ponzi scheme, there is an eerie resemblance, in the right light. 😉
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If Obama has any regrets regarding his presidency, it will be either (a) he didn't do enough or push hard enough to accomplish his worthy goals, or (b) he didn't communicate his ideas clearly enough.Bush didn't even regret that Social Security reform was dead on arrival? I mean, I know he didn't say that, but that would seem like an obvious answer. That we didn't immediately nail Bin Ladin. That terrorists exist.Surely, it's permissible to regret failures that you can effectively blame on other people.
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Yeah, as a Texan, its hard to say. Nobody I've ever known from there has been like that. Maybe I just don't hang out with the right people.Personally, I think it's a synergistic effect: a combination of an increasingly narrower and stricter form of conservatism, the influence of evangelical ChristianIty, the practicle knowledge of how flip-flopping politicians are crucified, and an attempt at trying to play-up the "John Wayne" fetishism of their base.
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"He sure threw his pastor overboard (and his grandmother). From Black Liberation theology to oh so WASP Episcopal theology of Henry VIII and the National Cathedral, almost overnight"Yeah, his pastor and grandmother had made some mistakes. But he was still awesome.Did you see the side by side comparison did (sort of) of Obama and the jobs speech and an earlier speech by Obama the middle-manager? Funny, because it's true.
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BHO apologized to the Cambridge cop and had the beers on the WH lawn kumbaya. etc.Scott, he reversed his Senate position on voting against raising the debt ceiling and said he had been wrong as a Senator. He also reversed his Senate position on the War Powers Act, I think without explanation.On the whole, I am with the group here. As Scott said, this is a function of being a politician. Perry has changed his positions on a dime in the past and he will do it again, I am sure. I do not find actual ranchers to be stuck in their errors more than anyone else. Hell, old ranch widows around here were solid for HRC b/c they thought she was a hard gal and they turned on a dime for McC b/c they were conservative, and had been making an exception for gettin' a hard gal into the WH before they died. Really.
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Another characterization would be having convictions, knowing what you believe, and showing leadership. Staying strong and true under attack.Obama is criticized only from the left, not by conservatives, for being too conciliatory. Indeed, aren't the constant attacks on Obama from the left demands that he be precisely more like what the left is attacking in Perry? Brace up, have some spine, Obama, punch back twice as hard! Stop caving and compromising!To the right, the key phrase here is "air of reasonableness," not the reality. Obama didn't even admit error in signing the pro-SSM pledge back in the 90s; his flacks just put out the patently false story that he didn't really sign it. To be sure, Obama is a poor leader by comparison (with the caveat that this is my first significant exposure to Perry and how he does things). He does tries like he is all things to all people. But this is part of a pose, not leadership. It is his way of trying to make anyone who disagrees with him on anything look unreasonable. It has nothing to do with a greater capacity for nuance or complexity. How is it, for example, that Perry is defending his Gardisil order, which is anathema to many traditional conservatives? Why doesn'that show nuance rather than obstinance?This nuance/complexity claim is a pet peeve; I'll write a post about it soon that should set heads exploding, except that we don't hate and explode here. ; )
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He does tries, qb? Really?He does try to present himself as all things…
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Re the SS Ponzi scheme, Teh Krug is on record years ago saying it is. (Also wrote in his macroecon text book that unemployment benefits foster unemployment.) Dang these people who look things up.
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… liberals and conservatives blogging together, mass hysteria.
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lms – that small sample size is typical enough.It is similiar to kids, when they do something that they were told not to do, just because the adult has left the room. As soon as the adult returns, they straighten up and say "Who, me?"
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"It has nothing to do with a greater capacity for nuance or complexity. How is it, for example, that Perry is defending his Gardisil order, which is anathema to many traditional conservatives? Why doesn'that show nuance rather than obstinance?"Perry made Merkel a LOT of money by that, and they were donating to his coffers. He didn't do it because it is a good idea. There is no nuance there. You will notice that the Gardisil thing is almost dead in the news already…Perry let it be known that he HAD actually been bought, and used the correct language for it. And Merkel probably talked to a few other tpartiers, and they are now on board with Perry.
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qb: "Another characterization would be having convictions, knowing what you believe, and showing leadership."This is another thing about what we call obstinacy, or an unwillingness to make mistakes: people often don't take these positions lightly, and they are often very important to them. It seems unlikely that they'll change them quickly in the face of criticism. In the case of Perry, I do not know (but suspect) he is a political animal in the mold of a Clinton, perhaps. More conservative, but (like so many politicians), a politician first. It's not party over country–it's politics over everything. But I am not familiar enough with Rick Perry to pronounce judgement. Mark, who I think would make a good Fair Witness for Jubal Harshaw, if he (Mark) was also a nubile young lady has had a lot more time to contemplate The Man With The Awesome Hair. I'd pay attention to Mark on Perry, and largely ignore me. 😉
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I really hated Stranger in a Strange Land, but I loved Jubal Harshaw and the whole Fair Witness thing. It seemed apropos of nothing but was entirely cool and interesting.The firestorm over comparing SS to a Ponzi scheme is entirely overblown. There's really no reason for anyone to back down. It's been said for decades and has much truth to it.
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"Perry made Merkel a LOT of money by that, and they were donating to his coffers. He didn't do it because it is a good idea."While I suppose this is not historically unusual (as Troll McWingnut recently pointed out, history, in some sense, always begins with our ability to remember things–not even our birth so much, but our first memories of paying attention and accumulating certain facts), it seems to be the predominant strain of politician these days, especially in the proving ground (there's a better, sports-related metaphor for that–what is it? bush league? no . . .) for future presidents, our state governors . . . Bill Haslam (our current state governor) has signed some legislation I (as a digital libertarian) don't much care for, and that he clearly wasn't all that familiar with what he was signing into law . . . and it's likely the work of the lobbyist who are authoring this state-by-state legislation to outlaw things like account sharing, provide state-level prosecution for copyright violators or folks who download movies or music, etc., etc. I dunno. All I know is Bill Haslam did not run on a platform of saving Tennessee from Netflix account sharing. Technically, Netflix can do things to control that, and can cap bandwidth per account. However, they, are others, may be looking for specific legislation not to prevent certain acts, but to create a fresh crop of violators to sue for revenue. The music industry currently makes a lot of money via lawsuits, as does the software industry (Microsoft has a division that orders their own software from various suppliers, looking for pirated software, and if they find something, then they sue–knowing full well the distributor probably had no idea they were selling pirated software), and copyright law is crafted (lobbying!) to favor Microsoft and other big software companies in this case, and turns suing largely innocent middlemen into source of revenue by lawsuit. Yet, people (and businesses) should be able to petition our government. Quite the connundrum. All I know is, every time I hear about some new law (more regulation, yay!) Bill Haslam has signed, I groan.
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"comparing SS to a Ponzi scheme is entirely overblown"you must be new to politics
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I love Strange in a Strange Land. Listened to the audiobook a couple of years ago, and loved it more. It's really one of Heinlein's strongest novels, although I love all his early adolescent stuff, too. He did a really great job. One has to be patient with some of the hippy-drippy stuff (keeping in mind, that was very novel, and no doubt very interesting to Heinlein, at the time he was preparing the novel). Compared to Fear No Evil? No contest. Methuselah's Children. Did you ever read that? First Lazarus Long novel, love that they end up fleeing earth because the envious general public are trying to pass laws to imprison and dissect them, to find out why they live so long–refusing to listen to the truthful genetic explanation.The main thing about SS vs. Ponzi is a Ponzi scheme presents itself as an investment, not a defined benefit program. While probably not as transparent as it should be, the financing and structure of SS is publicly known and generally understood, if imperfectly.
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How do you know what the latest conversation is, other than scrolling through each one to see?
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Taroya…go to the dashboard and click on "comments". You will see all comments in timestamp order, regardless of where they got posted.
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Truth is, there's a very thing line between stubbornness and strength. Guess it depends on what side of the issue you're on.
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It's been so long since I read a Heinlein novel (except Starship Troopers, which rocks) that I can't even remember many of them independently, but I did like M's Children a lot. SIASL is my least favorite of all. Truly hated it except for discrete elements.People have said for decades that SS resembles a Ponzi scheme for a reason: there is a resemblance. What is most damning imo is that it was sold to a public believing a set of demographic and actuarial assumptions (however loosely) that just would not hold in the long term. This is part of the Ponziness.
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Hey, I didn't know about that comments function, either. Will have to try it. Thanks Scott.
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Scott, I am sorry for every mean comment I have ever said to you.
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Taroya:I am sorry for every mean comment I have ever said to you. …or ever will say? 😉
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Hee hee, I deliberately avoided adding that.
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