Paul Krugman endorses Moore-Coulter

[maxparrish]

Besides, lets get to Krugman:

He stated:

"... both conservatives and liberals systematically misread facts in a way that confirms their biases. And more information doesn’t help: people screen out or discount facts that don’t fit their worldview...But here’s the thing: this ...effect is not, in fact, symmetric between liberals and conservatives...(conservatives) overwhelming rejection of something that shouldn’t even be in dispute."

Mind you, this is comes from a fellow whose own over the top assertions are often in dispute, and who confess

"Some have asked if there aren’t conservative sites I read regularly. Well, no...I don’t know of any economics or politics sites on that side...that I need to take seriously."


Anyway, he provides three examples, two of which strike me as significant. One is on climate change, and the other being "the frantic efforts to deny that Obamacare is in fact covering a lot of previously uninsured Americans?" and "a lot of talk about how it was Obama’s Katrina, or his Iraq." (He then made a lame comparison to the undisputed botching of the roll out to the disputable success of the Iraqi invasion)...(I do wonder how he can characterize opinion that he confesses he never finds worth reading, but that is a different matter).

'Now here's the thing', assuming somehow he read opinion sources that he never reads, he might have noticed that the doom talk in conservative press after the rollout sounds a lot like the flip side of the gloating when the numbers hit 7.1 million - or the war is lost and flee rhetoric of Murtha and Reid. How one 'measures' such is not clear, but what is clear is that Obamacare is not beyond dispute, nor are the touted numbers. And what constitutes 'covering a lot of previously uninsured Americans' is still in dispute.

To me, all Krugman is telling us is that he considers certain subjects as 'closed' with consensus, and he won't read anything that tells him otherwise.

Not exactly supporting his point, do you think?

 

[fromderinside]

Besides, lets get to Krugman:

To me, all Krugman is telling us is that he considers certain subjects as 'closed' with consensus, and he won't read anything that tells him otherwise.

Not exactly supporting his point, do you think?

Gotta agree. Your take is not supporting his point.

Problem with what you seem to be trying to say is that Democrats should be fair and balanced when responding to Republican demagoguery. How can a 3% disagreement with a 97% consens be either fair or balanced?

 

[maxparrish]

The point under discussion is not fairness or balance it is the validity or falsehood of Krugmans complaint:

He says that conservatives are far more likely to misread and/or distort the facts and, unlike Liberals, far more often reject something that shouldn’t even be in dispute.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The point under discussion is not fairness or balance it is the validity or falsehood of Krugmans complaint:

He says that conservatives are far more likely to misread and/or distort the facts and, unlike Liberals, far more often reject something that shouldn’t even be in dispute.

You aren't reading what he stated. He is saying (as many have said) that Republicans seem to have this problem with their bubble reality. The top pick off the top would be his "unskewing" comment regarding the 2012 election. Remember that? When the polls said Romney was losing, but the right-wing was so damn certain the polls were all skewed. The whole damn world was wrong, but they were right. It was so bad, Romney was stunned when he was spanked in the Electoral College... as the polls had predicted.

The right-wing has recently made it an art to ignore the reality and insert their own, like the W Admin and Iraq, when the analysts said they were in for a rough ride, but they just didn't understand how people could doubt them. And even when hundreds of Iraqis and several American soldiers died every day, all we heard from the White House was about how the media wasn't reporting on the building of schools.

There is a disconnect with reality that the right-wing suffers badly from. This is simply fact. That Benghazi gets so much mention even today, after their guy sat in a chair at a Kindergarten while 9/11 unfolded... seriously disconnected. But hey... Coulter-Moore, right?

 

[Underseer]

You aren't reading what he stated. He is saying (as many have said) that Republicans seem to have this problem with their bubble reality. The top pick off the top would be his "unskewing" comment regarding the 2012 election. Remember that? When the polls said Romney was losing, but the right-wing was so damn certain the polls were all skewed. The whole damn world was wrong, but they were right. It was so bad, Romney was stunned when he was spanked in the Electoral College... as the polls had predicted.

The right-wing has recently made it an art to ignore the reality and insert their own, like the W Admin and Iraq, when the analysts said they were in for a rough ride, but they just didn't understand how people could doubt them. And even when hundreds of Iraqis and several American soldiers died every day, all we heard from the White House was about how the media wasn't reporting on the building of schools.

There is a disconnect with reality that the right-wing suffers badly from. This is simply fact. That Benghazi gets so much mention even today, after their guy sat in a chair at a Kindergarten while 9/11 unfolded... seriously disconnected. But hey... Coulter-Moore, right?

You're missing the most important point.

The people who "unskewed" the polls were 100% correct because they were right wingers. It's the people who criticized them who are America-hating traitors who are wrong about everything. The fact that the election went for Obama despite the very Fair And Balanced(tm) statistical analysis by the Unskewed people is proof that Obama stole the election using his Secret Weather Machine.

So there is no problem with a reality bubble. It's the entire rest of the world that is living in a reality bubble. Rightists get all of their information from unbiased sources, remember?

 

[maxparrish]

He is saying (as many have said) that Republicans seem to have this problem with their bubble reality.

If you think that is consistent with his statement that conservatives are more likely to "screen out or discount the facts", and that they often reject something "that shouldn't be in dispute", then I agree that is what he is conveying. And to underscore his point "People want to believe what suits their preconceptions, so why the big difference between left and right on the extent to which this desire trumps facts?"

The top pick off the top would be his "unskewing" comment regarding the 2012 election. Remember that? When the polls said Romney was losing, but the right-wing was so damn certain the polls were all skewed. The whole damn world was wrong, but they were right. It was so bad, Romney was stunned when he was spanked in the Electoral College... as the polls had predicted.

Oh please Jimmy. Anyone who has following elections since 1968, and read all the usual books (starting with Theodore Whites' classic series The Making of a President) know there is not a Presidential election that goes by that the fellow who is behind does not claim that the polls are wrong. Hell, Dukakis and the Democrats was sure the Polls were were skewed and pointed to the huge turnouts he got in the closing month. In 2012, the strong belief that the election polls were wrong did not come out of thin air, or just because Romney was behind, but because Republicans were also thinking that 'the black' effect was inflating Obama's numbers (and they did not appreciate the powerful Obama ground game)...they relied on long noted phenomena that black candidates tend to poll higher than the actual results as a few folks usually fib to the pollsters in order to look more tolerant or accepting than they are.

In addition, polls were divergent. Gallup had a huge lead for Romney, Rasmussen a tossup, Washington Post/ABC and Mason-Dixon also showed much stronger (than warranted) Republican strength. And as it turned out, almost every poll over-estimated the GOP vote. But it's not novel that polls at election time are wrong, everyone remembers the shocker in 1980 when a 'toss-up' in the polls turned out to be a trouncing by Reagan. Were the polls skewed then, you betcha. And remember those great skewed exit polls for Kerry (many Democrats suggesting that the election itself had to be wrong because of the polls...)?

Nope, Krugman is hair-pulling incredulous that the GOP has the hutzpuh to question the veracity of the pollsters who put Obama in a lead, as if only Democrats can question polls?

No Dorothy, polls are not something that should "never be in dispute", and they always are.

The right-wing has recently made it an art to ignore the reality and insert their own, like the W Admin and Iraq, when the analysts said they were in for a rough ride, but they just didn't understand how people could doubt them. And even when hundreds of Iraqis and several American soldiers died every day, all we heard from the White House was about how the media wasn't reporting on the building of schools.

There is a disconnect with reality that the right-wing suffers badly from. This is simply fact. That Benghazi gets so much mention even today, after their guy sat in a chair at a Kindergarten while 9/11 unfolded... seriously disconnected. But hey... Coulter-Moore, right?

Well, if you are drawing from Moore for the 9/11 of Bush, it is telling.

Again, the debate over post-invasion Iraq was not an issue that 'should never be in dispute' or 'in a bubble'. When a war is controversial, and the domestic insurgency is in progress there is always a lot of good and bad news - from growing electrical production, elections, restored water supplies, etc. TO increasing casualties, new insurgents from Al Qaeda, etc. Facts on post invasion were not screened or discounted, they were weighed by both sides and they came to different conclusions.

For Reid and Murtha (and other Democrats) 'the war was lost' and it was time to cut and run. For Bush it was a belated realization that he needed to try another strategy...and in spite of fierce Democratic opposition in its own bubble of relentless Bush hostility, it worked.

By the way, it was the same for Democrats in Vietnam. From 1964 to 1968 they thought they were winning, and also made the same complaints as the Bush administration. Either case is a poor example of liberal/conservative discounting of facts. It was not a matter of ideology, but groupthink. No one is immune to that.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In addition, polls were divergent. Gallup had a huge lead for Romney, Rasmussen a tossup, Washington Post/ABC and Mason-Dixon also showed much stronger (than warranted) Republican strength. And as it turned out, almost every poll over-estimated the GOP vote.

What I remember is that Obama was assured an electoral college victory. It is also odd that the Republicans would have been complaining about the polls being wrong and having to run their own polls if they were already doing so well in the polls to begin with.

But it's not novel that polls at election time are wrong, everyone remembers the shocker in 1980 when a 'toss-up' in the polls turned out to be a trouncing by Reagan. Were the polls skewed then, you betcha. And remember those great skewed exit polls for Kerry (many Democrats suggesting that the election itself had to be wrong because of the polls...)?

The exit polls have, to my knowledge, never been wrong, except for '04. And why are you bringing up exit polls?

 

[fromderinside]

The point under discussion is not fairness or balance it is the validity or falsehood of Krugmans complaint:

He says that conservatives are far more likely to misread and/or distort the facts and, unlike Liberals, far more often reject something that shouldn’t even be in dispute.

Yet, here you are, a conservative with blinders fully set in place, speaking of the verifiability or truthfulness (whatever that is with respect to this discussion since its entirely based on belief), of Krugman's complaint.

As far as verifiability goes my last post pointed out with the fair and balanced statement is its silly to consider one side when the other side has 97% verifiability.

On the truthiness thing, lets not discuss that. Doing so is evidence free. Its the same as being one of two talking heads in some fair and balanced discussion.

You need to find something like the left has found and presented here like Romney drank the Kool Aid about skewed polls, or, republicans chant there is no climate change going toward hot largely caused by humans even though the best they can do is say "Well 3% of the scientists disagree with that conclusion", so we can compare apples with apples rather than allegations with allegations.

Krugman made a claim. Some of us cited examples where what he said can be verified. You can't just make claims here. Bring us material which can be verified like that I mentioned above. There may be some, perhaps even some in the above posts. Its necessary we concentrate on such rather than bloviating. Our posts should be evidence for or against the validity of claims rather than Colter/Moore-like spouts.

I'm pretty convinced there are fewer lefties who spout chant-like dung than there are righties who chant chant like dung. You need to convince me in the validity (the light day) arena rather than with truthiness allegations.

 

[maxparrish]

What I remember is that Obama was assured an electoral college victory. It is also odd that the Republicans would have been complaining about the polls being wrong and having to run their own polls if they were already doing so well in the polls to begin with.
The exit polls have, to my knowledge, never been wrong, except for '04. And why are you bringing up exit polls?

The only thing odd is that anyone thinks that disputing an election poll is indicative of the Moore-Coulter effect. As I demonstrated, when it comes to polls, that is utter nonsense.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The only thing odd is that anyone thinks that disputing an election poll is indicative of the Moore-Coulter effect. As I demonstrated, when it comes to polls, that is utter nonsense.

Well, as soon as someone makes that claim, then you are golden.

 

[maxparrish]

Yet, here you are, a conservative with blinders fully set in place, speaking of the verifiability or truthfulness (whatever that is with respect to this discussion since its entirely based on belief), of Krugman's complaint.

As far as verifiability goes my last post pointed out with the fair and balanced statement is its silly to consider one side when the other side has 97% verifiability.

On the truthiness thing, lets not discuss that. Doing so is evidence free. Its the same as being one of two talking heads in some fair and balanced discussion.

You need to find something like the left has found and presented here like Romney drank the Kool Aid about skewed polls

Horse poo. I don't need to provide a counter example to the claim that conservatives disputed something that was undisputable, BECAUSE poll accuracy WAS (and usually is) disputable. It was disputable in 2012, 2004, 1998, etc. The Week news site, November 1:

The polls provide some support for each camp: Obama is leading in enough swing states to win the electoral college while Romney surged in the national polls to take a slight lead after the Denver debate (Real Clear Politics now has the candidates tied at 47.6 percent). That split between the state and national polls is vexing to "would-be prognosticators" like RCP's Sean Trende and FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver, says Ross Douthat at The New York Times. But it's a gift to democracy — and partisans on each side. "Both Republicans and Democrats will head to the voting booth next week clutching something almost as precious as the franchise itself — a reason to believe." Here are six signs that each side is right — three points for Romney winning in the final six days of the race, and three for Obama:...

http://theweek.com/article/index/235660/obama-vs-romney-6-signs-the-momentum-is-shifting [/quote]

Krugman's phony hairpulling 'shock' over disputed skewed polls is an act - I don't believe that he even believes it...

By the way, over at the mildly to modestly liberal Brookings is a recent study confirms the demographic and turnout related causes of Romney's loss: verifying to post election premises, that higher minority turnout and lower white turnout turned a toss-up into an Obama victory.

To assess the impact of turnout alone on the 2012 election I assumed that the national electorate had the size and racial and ethnic composition of the new Census survey and applied to it the more “Republican favorable” turnout rates of 2004 for each racial and ethnic group, as shown in Figure 2. This of course resulted in more white voters and fewer minority voters than actually occurred in 2012. To these voter populations, I applied the actual 2012 voting margins as shown in Figure 3. The result of this exercise was a small 2012 Romney win of 9,000 votes—a virtual tossup. Thus it might be said that the high minority and low white turnout rates of 2012 were responsible for Obama taking the national vote, irrespective of the changing demography of the electorate.

To see how much difference the higher 2012 turnout of minorities alone made in the final outcome, I conducted the same exercise assuming the “low” 2004 turnout rates for blacks, Hispanics and Asians, but with the actual 2012 white turnout rates. Under this scenario, the 2012 election is close with Obama ahead, but barely. So we might say that the high turnout of minorities, and blacks especially, did make a difference in the outcome of the 2012 election.

Some or many polls were inaccurate because they did not see the very high black turnout (in particular), and the less than optimal white turnout. Had the grassroots been more energized (as in 2004) the expected dead heat would have occurred.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/05/10-election-2012-minority-voter-turnout-frey

 

[arkirk]

You ever wonder why the turnout of any part of our society should skew the election one way or the other. Black people if they have a lick of sense have to vote against Republicans. With Obama's deportation record, brown people actually have nobody to vote for.

People like the fire breathing antisocial Paul Ryan are not likely to get votes from blacks, browns, elderly people, or Asians. Measuring this stuff begs every social and environmental issue. Republican hubris versus Democrat duplicity. Your life is not improved by this method of politics. As long as our politics do not touch ISSUES OF IMPORTANCE TO SOCIETY AS A WHOLE, choosing between billionaire supported candidates does us no good, solves no problems, gives us people in the streets.

The difference between right wing zealots and Democrat mainstreamers is that the Demos have more convincing liars.

 

[travc]

I'm not expressing an opinion because I have not made a study of the subject and have not tried tabulating any numbers, but think about how many anti-GMO laws have been passed in modern industrialized nations all over the world. Think about how many "alternative medicine" quacks are actually getting money from the British health care system.

Are conservolibertarians worse than liberals when it comes to being anti-science? Again, I don't know and I don't even know where to get the facts to settle that matter empirically, but it's pretty bad on both sides. Surely we can agree to that.

First off: "conservolibertarians" aren't the topic. We're talking about conservatives using the modern US meaning of the term.

Yes, coservatives are demonstrably worse than liberals when it comes to being anti-science.
There is shit-loads of documentation. You can start with  Politicization_of_science.

Getting more general... Science is fundamentally a threat to extablished power structures and authority, and therefore anti-conservative. It isn't liberal (in the modern US sense) per-se, but by any reasonable understanding of the term "conservative", it is not a friend to conservatives. There is a looooong history here backing me up.

Finally... Thank you for an excellent example of a sort-of generalized Moore-Coulter fallacy. Anti-GMO and pro-"alternative medicie" are issues with the same levels of importance and insitutional and political support as climate-change denial, anti-evolution, gagging EPA risk assessments, exempting fracking from real scruitny and regulation, ect ect ect.
Oh, and you may want to considder who the biggest advocate for "alternative medicine" is in the UK... that's right, the noted liberal the Prince of Wales

ETA: I think this, once again, really boils down to the fact that authoritarians tend to be conservatives, so conservative authoritarian power structures and leaders tend to be much more successful.

 

[travc]

Horse poo. I don't need to provide a counter example to the claim that conservatives disputed something that was undisputable, BECAUSE poll accuracy WAS (and usually is) disputable. It was disputable in 2012, 2004, 1998, etc. The Week news site, November 1:

http://theweek.com/article/index/235660/obama-vs-romney-6-signs-the-momentum-is-shifting

Krugman's phony hairpulling 'shock' over disputed skewed polls is an act - I don't believe that he even believes it...

By the way, over at the mildly to modestly liberal Brookings is a recent study confirms the demographic and turnout related causes of Romney's loss: verifying to post election premises, that higher minority turnout and lower white turnout turned a toss-up into an Obama victory.

Some or many polls were inaccurate because they did not see the very high black turnout (in particular), and the less than optimal white turnout. Had the grassroots been more energized (as in 2004) the expected dead heat would have occurred.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/05/10-election-2012-minority-voter-turnout-frey

You don't seem to realize that predicting turnout is an intergral part of polling. The "unskewed" polling shit hinged on turnout models which (if stated at all) were easily identified as unrealistic.
It is like denying global climate change based on a model where you just reduced the heat-absorbing efficiency of CO2... it is just bullshit.

BTW: It doesn't help your argument to quote an article which tries to go for fake 'balance' based on the same bullshit PK (and lots of other people) called in real-time.

 

[travc]

The point under discussion is not fairness or balance it is the validity or falsehood of Krugmans complaint:

He says that conservatives are far more likely to misread and/or distort the facts and, unlike Liberals, far more often reject something that shouldn’t even be in dispute.

Maybe you should read his post again... He says:

One possible answer would be that liberals and conservatives are very different kinds of people — that liberalism goes along with a skeptical, doubting — even self-doubting — frame of mind; “a liberal is someone who won’t take his own side in an argument.”

Another possible answer is that it’s institutional, that liberals don’t have the same kind of monolithic, oligarch-financed network of media organizations and think tanks as the right.

Personally, I think both are true. However, some interesting research (like that Ezra discusses in his post) argues against the "different kinds of people" reasoning. My opinon (based on some other sociology results, not just 'lived experience') is that everyone is prone to confirmation bias and 'digging in', but that conservatives tend to be more resistant to adjusting their views (almost tautological given the meaning of the word "conservative")... or more precisely, people who can deal with high degrees of cognitive dissonance and people who basically unquestioningly accept the dictates of a chosen authority both tend to self-identify as conservative.

The institutionalized bubble is a huge factor though.

PS: Equating MSNBC with FauxNews + right wing talk radio is a rediculous (Moore-Coulter) counter-argument.

 

[Underseer]

First off: "conservolibertarians" aren't the topic. We're talking about conservatives using the modern US meaning of the term.

Yes, coservatives are demonstrably worse than liberals when it comes to being anti-science.
There is shit-loads of documentation. You can start with  Politicization_of_science.

Getting more general... Science is fundamentally a threat to extablished power structures and authority, and therefore anti-conservative. It isn't liberal (in the modern US sense) per-se, but by any reasonable understanding of the term "conservative", it is not a friend to conservatives. There is a looooong history here backing me up.

Finally... Thank you for an excellent example of a sort-of generalized Moore-Coulter fallacy. Anti-GMO and pro-"alternative medicie" are issues with the same levels of importance and insitutional and political support as climate-change denial, anti-evolution, gagging EPA risk assessments, exempting fracking from real scruitny and regulation, ect ect ect.
Oh, and you may want to considder who the biggest advocate for "alternative medicine" is in the UK... that's right, the noted liberal the Prince of Wales

ETA: I think this, once again, really boils down to the fact that authoritarians tend to be conservatives, so conservative authoritarian power structures and leaders tend to be much more successful.

Do we really need to distinguish between conservatives and libertarians when it comes to their anthropogenic climate change denialism? Conservolibertarian is simply easier to type than "conservatives and libertarians."

 

[travc]

Do we really need to distinguish between conservatives and libertarians when it comes to their anthropogenic climate change denialism? Conservolibertarian is simply easier to type than "conservatives and libertarians."

I would prefer to just leave libertarians out of it. Too easy to get off into the whole "big-L" Libertarian vs libertarian distinction. (I assume the relevant positions wrt climate change would be denial and a simple carbon-tax respectively.)

I would like to hear your response to my main points though. Sience is a threat to conservatives, and there is really no comparison between the degree and institutional support behind conservative anti-science positions/policies and liberal ones.

 

[maxparrish]

You don't seem to realize that predicting turnout is an intergral part of polling. The "unskewed" polling shit hinged on turnout models which (if stated at all) were easily identified as unrealistic.
It is like denying global climate change based on a model where you just reduced the heat-absorbing efficiency of CO2... it is just bullshit.

BTW: It doesn't help your argument to quote an article which tries to go for fake 'balance' based on the same bullshit PK (and lots of other people) called in real-time.

Odd, you don't seem to realize that because turnout is uncertain in many elections, as such is always it is always a part of the polling process in dispute (again I refer you to the prior examples of Dukakis, Reagan, etc.). So your 'easily identified as unrealistic' models was not so identified at Gallup and the other three pollsters I mentioned, nor even 18 of 21 pollsters that gave Republicans higher net percentages than they actually attained (Nate Silver).

You can keep making unsupported claims of 'easily identified unrealism' like Krugman, but until you offer counter-factual to the 'easily identified' assumptions of a horse race shared in the media - well, you are talking to the wind.

Of Krugman's three examples this is the lamest.

PS "BTW: It doesn't help your argument to quote an article which tries to go for fake 'balance' based on the same bullshit PK (and lots of other people) called in real-time."

What helps my argument is someone making an unsupported claim about an article "go(ing) for fake balance", so as to screen out uncomfortable facts - the very fault the Krugman is pointing to.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Do we really need to distinguish between conservatives and libertarians when it comes to their anthropogenic climate change denialism? Conservolibertarian is simply easier to type than "conservatives and libertarians."

Yes.

Given your Poe act, pretending to be a progressive who can't tell the difference between conservatives and libertarians, it becomes even more important than ever to define the two so that you are shown as a conservative who, like all other conservatives, hates libertarians. And you want to take any issue at all to pretend that libertarians agree with conservatives no matter what the actual libertarian position is.

That way by your act you demean progressives by pretending they are uninformed, and demean libertarians by pretending they are conservatives. The problem is, your act is stale and by using the nonsense word over and over you've convinced people that conservatives and libertarians are quite distinct.

 

[maxparrish]

"The thing is" there are plenty of anti-scientific views on the left, many of which should not even be in dispute. The whole organic foods, GMO foods, sustainable food religion is one example, as is the attendant hysteria over plastic grocery bags (so much so many communities ban plastic, require the purchase of paper bags, and some will soon require cloth bags).

Many of these folks have a whole lifestyle based on unscientific beliefs; driving hybrid cars, insisting on natural fibers for clothing, imagining intolerances to just about every food, fragrance, or vapor in existence. The mantra of "sustainability" is lifestyle of redemption through the church of the environment. And of course, this secular religion creates pointless sacrifices and inefficiencies for others in the forms of demanding regulations for low usage water shower-heads and toilets, uneconomical sources of power, banning light bulbs, etc.

And when they are dictating to others how to live, these 'scientific' liberals are committed to astrology, homeopathy, veganism, crystal gazing, drum circles, etc.

Moreover, on many social-scientific issues, their world views demand they screen the facts of science and biology:

- Gender Issues, the uniform religion that their are no intellectual or innate behavioral differences between the sexes. As Lawrence Summers discovered, his accurate comments on women in science created a huge backlash in the cultural and academic left, much as if he had gone to a tent revival in the Ozarks and preached Darwinism.

- Most Race Issues - IQ and other innate attributes.

Yep, plenty of 'fact screening' on the left as well.

Come to think of it, there is so much irrationality on the left there is a TV satire devoted to it: Portlandia