This was a suggestion of a recent episode of Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole and judging by some recent discussions I've had with Sumner and other conservatives at his Money Illusion I'm inclined to think that's true. Liberals and conservatives are such different species i that any attempt at mutual understanding is fruitless.
That me and Sumner don't agree and are not bosom buddies is nothing new.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/05/is-fed-panacea-sumner-says-yes-while.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/05/this-is-scott-sumner-taking-joke.html
How someone like Sumner gets this thinskinned is a fascinating question for the psychoanalysts.
Today he was doing something new-whining about Krugman; in saying this is new is obviously meant ironically.
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29399#comments
He does approve of Matt Yglesias which is fine. Yglesias makes sense, unlike Sumner:
"For Americans who have followed British politics primarily through the lens of American Keynesians complaining that Cameron's austerity policies destroyed the British economy, the results may come as a bit of a shock. Is the UK economy actually doing great? Was Paul Krugman wrong about everything?"
"The only facts I sited were the fact that my friend's food stamps he gets from the State of NY have been cut over the last 6 years."
"When I met him he received $185 per month in food stamps now he gets $138. That's a significant cut. That was my whole point. You say it's an anecdote but it's just a fact."
"He may be MI but he's not mentally retarded and actually got a high school diploma-and went to Berkley to boot. If you knew anything about the MI you'd know that many of them despite some basic problems and neurosis are also often very creative and talented in the arts, etc. "
"For you to assume that anyone MI has a 48 IQ and drools in their porridge all day struck me as rank bigotry."
"My response was more vitriolic because struck me as kind of sad that an apparently intelligent adult like yourself can be so ignorant and small minded."
"I was angry because I took this as an insult to my friend who MI or no, is a fine man and human being."
"I am glad that you finally read this-I had no expectation that you ever would-but am disappointed that you don't want to come again. I'm not angry at you anymore even if you don't like me. "
"I guess it goes back to my whole point-conservatives and liberals can''t converse together in an intelligent and civil way."
"I watched an episode of Morgan Freeman recently-I don't know if you've seen his Through the Wormhole before but it's pretty good if you like the subject of time travel which I do-and one interesting suggestion was that liberals and conservatives literally have different structured brains."
"If so, it explains a lot."
"Overall, my point is not to insult you. To tell you the truth you strike me as an intelligent guy overall-as many of you do at Money Illusion. I actually think Scott himself is. But when you made these comments about the MI I felt you were better than that. That's all."
"I wish you the best and hope maybe you'll reconsider. I hope you understand that my point wasn't to attack you but defend my friend."
.
That me and Sumner don't agree and are not bosom buddies is nothing new.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/05/is-fed-panacea-sumner-says-yes-while.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/05/this-is-scott-sumner-taking-joke.html
How someone like Sumner gets this thinskinned is a fascinating question for the psychoanalysts.
Today he was doing something new-whining about Krugman; in saying this is new is obviously meant ironically.
http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=29399#comments
He does approve of Matt Yglesias which is fine. Yglesias makes sense, unlike Sumner:
"For Americans who have followed British politics primarily through the lens of American Keynesians complaining that Cameron's austerity policies destroyed the British economy, the results may come as a bit of a shock. Is the UK economy actually doing great? Was Paul Krugman wrong about everything?"
"The truth is more complicated than that. Team Austerity didn't do as well as a superficial read of the returns would suggest — the UK economy is in some ways struggling, the austerity question itself was considerably more complicated than the US media debate about it suggested, and fundamentally the biggest issue in the UK economy has nothing at all to do with austerity or overspending."
http://www.vox.com/2015/5/8/8572961/austerity-uk-election
Yglesias also makes an important point-this was not so much a victory for Tories as a failure of Labor to pick up all the anti coalition votes as the Liberals collapsed from 23% of the vote in 2010 to 8% this year. The Conservatives share of the vote went up only very slightly-the Liberal vote didn't go to the Tories but they didn't go to Labor but rather were splintered between various other fringe parties.
Meanwhile, one of Sumner's commentators nails it:
"In the context of focusing on feelings… I don’t want to sound like a Krugman defender here, but, though wrong in the past about issues of importance, I think Krugman gets more than his fair share of criticism. From my point of view, equitable share of criticism is about who has the dirtiest shirt in the mainstream of the debate over economic policy where unrepentant fiscalism at a high level is full of comparatively benign ambiguity while the vehemently anti-inflation facet of the austerists’ side of the debate is flat out disastrous. I care about whether average people have access to a means of survival in the post-industrial age world and prioritize policies for criticism that are most destructive to that end, with the misguided anti-inflation/austerity policies winning the top spot with very little contest. The suggestion that the combination of ever tighter monetary policy and tight fiscal policy results in economic nirvana deserves relentless ridicule for the calamitous policy effects it produces. Thus, it seems that focused criticism on Krugman is mildly pointless; win the battle but lose the war and then some."
This is a point that Sumner''s benefactor, Ken Duda have also made, to no avail. Sumner wants war with the Keynesians, he wants to 'Crush the Infamous Thing'-a la Voltaire, and nothing can dissuade him from his pointless war.
Meanwhile. TallDave, another Sumner commentator that I had written about awhile ago-actually on New Year's Day, finally read it and left a comment:
"First of all, you declared your friend mentally ill, not me; I merely pointed out that anecdotes from the mentally ill are not a reliable data source. Secondly, you clearly had the facts completely wrong. Third, the math was clearly explained in the study, with many charts and tables. Fourth, this narrative is mostly fantasy, especially your contributions. Fifth, I'm sorry if you're upset by the facts but your vitriolic response is rather juvenile, and frankly I have better things to do. I won't bother reading anything else you write."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/01/talldave-whats-difference-between.html?showComment=1431402468840#c9056296865425808944
I'll print my response to him rather than re-litigate it here:
"Dave this piece was literally written on New Years so you're late to the party. Still good to know you did read it finally. I'm sorry if you don't want to read anything more. Obviously most of my posts aren't about you."
"What makes his anecdote worthless-that it's an anecdote or that he''s mentally ill? First of all 'mentally ill' is a pretty broad category. For anyone just to dismiss anything that someone says because they are MI I think is way too vast a net.""The only facts I sited were the fact that my friend's food stamps he gets from the State of NY have been cut over the last 6 years."
"When I met him he received $185 per month in food stamps now he gets $138. That's a significant cut. That was my whole point. You say it's an anecdote but it's just a fact."
"He may be MI but he's not mentally retarded and actually got a high school diploma-and went to Berkley to boot. If you knew anything about the MI you'd know that many of them despite some basic problems and neurosis are also often very creative and talented in the arts, etc. "
"For you to assume that anyone MI has a 48 IQ and drools in their porridge all day struck me as rank bigotry."
"My response was more vitriolic because struck me as kind of sad that an apparently intelligent adult like yourself can be so ignorant and small minded."
"I was angry because I took this as an insult to my friend who MI or no, is a fine man and human being."
"I am glad that you finally read this-I had no expectation that you ever would-but am disappointed that you don't want to come again. I'm not angry at you anymore even if you don't like me. "
"I guess it goes back to my whole point-conservatives and liberals can''t converse together in an intelligent and civil way."
"I watched an episode of Morgan Freeman recently-I don't know if you've seen his Through the Wormhole before but it's pretty good if you like the subject of time travel which I do-and one interesting suggestion was that liberals and conservatives literally have different structured brains."
"If so, it explains a lot."
"Overall, my point is not to insult you. To tell you the truth you strike me as an intelligent guy overall-as many of you do at Money Illusion. I actually think Scott himself is. But when you made these comments about the MI I felt you were better than that. That's all."
"I wish you the best and hope maybe you'll reconsider. I hope you understand that my point wasn't to attack you but defend my friend."
So even now, I'm trying. I doubt it will work though. Morgan Freeman has it right.
.
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