I've even started a tag for Paul Krugman, which prior today had 24 entries.
It was Paul Krugman who joined the chorus of left-wing bloggers who blamed the shooting of Gabriell Giffords and the murder of several people in that shooting on right-wing rhetoric, even though there was not a shred of evidence that Jared Loughner was incited by political rhetoric, much less right-wing political rhetoric. Yet Krugman wrote:
You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers.Krugman shut down the comments to that column, writing in an update:
I’m going to take down comments on this one; they would need a lot of moderating, because the crazies are coming out in force, and it’s all too likely to turn into a flame war.For Krugman, making accusations that right-wing rhetoric is responsible for violence without any proof is nothing new. Among other things, Krugman also falsely blamed the Holocaust Museum shooting on conservatives.
So imagine my surprise to see that Krugman penned a column titled Let's Not Be Civil:
Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.That's exactly what Republicans, and conservatives, and Tea Party supporters have been doing the past two years in criticizing the substance of Obamacare and Obama's policies, which earned Krugman's ire and accusations of hate-speech and inciting violence.
This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues. It’s much worse when many of those at the table are the sort of people who solicit and believe the kind of policy analyses that the Heritage Foundation supplies.
So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.
But when Obama accused Paul Ryan not merely of having a supposedly flawed plan, but of wanting senior citizens, the disabled and the sick to suffer, that's okay with Krugman. Dissent all of the sudden is patriotic.
I could go on and on, but the NY Times new firewall has blocked me when I tried to pull up additional Krugman columns:
Now I know the real reason for the paywall, to prevent those of us who do not want to feed the beast from getting the evidence to call Paul Krugman what he is, a complete and total phony, a hypocrite of the worst type, a has-been using his Nobel Prize as an excuse to call others names to cover up his lack of evidence.
Thank goodness Paul Krugman has taken off the mask, and it's now patriotic to call Krugman a !@%$#% hypocrite.
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As always, the left has a different standard than the right. The left can say ANYTHING and it's "patriotic dissent," but the right is to SIT DOWN and SHUT UP if they want to be truly "patriotic."
ReplyDeleteAlinsky 101.
OT - are you going to blog about the signing statement issue?! I read Volokh, but I hope you will shine your light on the issue. Your opinion, to me, is more clear and astute. Thanks.
"...if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so..."
ReplyDeleteTypically Orwellian message from the Left, which must be stood on its head to meet reality. As written, this has NEVER been at issue. Professional GOP still hasn't learned to swap 2nd and 5th words, and act accordingly. Which is why we still need the TEA Parties.
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
"Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive"
"In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters." What's new?
ReplyDeleteThe Progressive approach, seems to me, wants to saturate the ears of their voting base with vitriol about the Republicans. What could go wrong?
The only thing I can think of would be to add physical violence. And then that could be the spark of something called 'civil war'. The Urban Dictionary describes: War is a state of widespread conflict between states, organisations, or relatively large groups of people, which is characterised by the use of lethal violence between combatants or upon civilians.
Progressives have no idealogical intellectual choices left. Obama is inconceivably incompetent.
As I understand it (I rarely read that crap), once you get the above screen at the NYT paywall, switch browsers and you can read another 20 propaganda pieces. When that runs out (glutton for punishment?) do it again. IE, Firefox and Chrome will get you 60 articles, word is that if you clear your cache at that point you can start all over again.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to get worse after today. That's because today, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's revised the U.S. government debt outlook to negative. It also said there's a 1-in-3 chance policymakers won't sufficiently address the debt bomb issue by 2013 and will result in a downgrade from its AAA status.
ReplyDeleteS&P's actions show what a farce the fiscal year 2011 budget deal just negotiated was. S&P's actions also will give Krugman and his ilk a new license to scream at the top of their lungs about the need to raise taxes. Our side will say it demonstrates the need to cut spending. Our side is right, of course, as government spending as a share of GDP has never been higher in the modern post-WWII era.
Civility will be thrown out the window as Krugman and others ratchet up the demagoguery.
clear your cookies and you should be able to get past the "firewall" ... or use a different browser ... :)
ReplyDeleteCivility will be thrown out the window as Krugman and others ratchet up the demagoguery.
ReplyDeleteThing about that is, to a libtard, incivility is throwing a bunch of sticks & rocks, climbing through broken windows to illegally occupy legislative state houses, and prancing around, shrieking "This is what democracy looks like...!"
That's "incivility" to them.
Incivility to us, on the other hand...
Is that the same kind of hypocrisy where Gingrich and others GOP politicians slammed health care reform for cutting Medicare spending? But now the same people sing the praises of Ryan's plan for achieving full solvency for it? Or the same people who passed unfunded Medicare prescription benefit, unfunded wars, unfunded tax cuts (and wanted to hold up everything to extend the tax cuts just months ago) are now wringing their hands and crying ZOMG the debt how could we have let this happen!
ReplyDeleteWhen there's no riposte on the substance, then the ad-hominems on 'civility' and 'hypocrisy' come out.
You should be able to exceed the NYT's limit by deleting the cookies which the site sets. An even simpler way is to use Google Chrome in "incognito" mode, since all cookies and history are deleted when you close the incognito session's window(s).
ReplyDeleteI stopped reading him when he claimed that the stimulus spending was insufficient and should have been much much higher. He's not bothered by the level of debt with this President, but everything Bush did was wrong.
ReplyDeleteThere's ways around that $25 million paywall (what a joke).
ReplyDeleteThere's a java script that you can run. (google it cause I don't remember what it is) or do as others have noted above and I read that the paywall doesn't stop google searches.
Next up: How long before NYT paywall is discovered to be
a) useless
b) costing them readership (their page reads and uniques vist statistics seem to be down).
c) a typical liberal plan that disregards economic and market fundamentals and becomes a losing proposition.
I fail to see why a "frank discussion" or pointing out cruel nonsense requires incivility. Why can't Krugman, et al, discuss differences in policy respectfully and civilly?
ReplyDeleteIsn't it amazing that the Wall Street Journal has way over 2 million paid circulation [including online] and is INCREASING its subscriber rate while the NYT is hemorrhaging paid circ at close to 10% per annum and is below 800,000 paid subscribers?
ReplyDeleteAt this rate, the obnoxious hypocrite Krugman may have to find another venue for his spew. Judging from his comment section, he has plenty of useful idiots out there who agree with his economic & political gibberish.
That Nobel for economics he got was as well-deserved as the Peace Prize Obama stumbled into merely by being an icon of the left---and for the same reason.
Another way to get around the paywall is to go to the url bar and simply delete everything after thr .html.
ReplyDeleteAlas, CurmudgeonlyTroll, the cons didn't do enough early enough. That said, I'm going to go ahead and latch on to the Ryan train and hope for the best.
ReplyDeleteReading Krugman makes me want to toss my cookies rather than rest them...
ReplyDeleteSet Krugman to "Ignore"
ReplyDeleteThere are so many worthwhile people to listen to or read and time is so limited....
Clear your cache and you can get another 30 NY Times articles.
ReplyDeleteRepeat.
Professor, I know you aren't always in agreement, but congrads on the Weekly Standard shout-out.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/happy-hour-obamas-speech-not-so-reassuring_557557.html
right because it's totally comparable to compare krugman's call for heated rhetoric to the commonplace calls by righty politicians and blogs for physical violence (Sharon Angle, who your side saw fit to run for the freaking senate openly called for second amendment "remedies", in other words shooting your opponents).
ReplyDeleteFrankly pretending you don;t understand that difference is asinine in extremis.
Tlaloc totally missed the point here. Krugman was whining about civility. Now he's asking people to be uncivil. Forget which politician was saying what, the guy has done a total 180.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, this has nothing to do with what ANYONE else said/is saying and only deals with Krugman. 3 months ago, incivility was the worst thing to happen to this Republic since the Civil War and quite possibly the bane of human existence according to Krugman. Today, well it's quite alright to be uncivil. Get it?