Comments on: "idealism" https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2841 2002-2015 Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:34:52 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.7.2 By: theCoach https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2841#comment-8125 Mon, 29 Nov 2004 16:34:52 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2004/11/idealism.html#comment-8125 Bill,
The Republican/Libertarian case that you mention kind of falls apart upon a closer look. At least the principled (R/L) case.
The argument is that instead of spending money on services that people need, we will be forced into a box of spending money on interest and debt reduction.
There is a Republican/Libertarian case to only go into deficit spending in times of serious emergency, while at the same time cutting taxes and cutting spending. However, to create a deficit so that you can cut the government, even simply for the political reality it creates just does not make sense. It is not a reality based policy. If the rationale for reducing spending is the deficit and the amount of money that must go to servicing that deficit, then that rationale goes away when the deficit is reduced. and there is no principle argument for maintaing a deficit so that spending can be transferred from needs to servicing debt.

]]> By: Bill Sullivan https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2841#comment-8124 Thu, 04 Nov 2004 18:20:27 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2004/11/idealism.html#comment-8124 “That irresponsible tax cuts don�t pay for themselves; they instead control the domestic agenda for decades.”

This isn’t clear to me. How do they control the domestic agenda? A conservative/libertarian case in favor of a sort of control is that by running deficits, it makes the growth of government much harder, as it is already strapped for cash. This, notably, seems to not be the case with the Bush budgets, but it does have a certain intuitive sense.

Of course, if you like the expansion of government, then that intuitive sense is probably pretty repellant.

]]> By: Mike Weston https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2841#comment-8123 Tue, 02 Nov 2004 14:15:40 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2004/11/idealism.html#comment-8123 Of the various political books I’ve read this year, this one and Richard Clarke’s (Against All Enemies) are the best two at exposing the Bush administration’s flaws without being strident about it.

]]> By: dd https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2841#comment-8122 Tue, 02 Nov 2004 00:04:53 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2004/11/idealism.html#comment-8122 The current world has worked on advertising and marketing for sometime now. Acting is everything and has been since RR, an actor of medicore skills, created all sorts of new realities that were only happening on TV. Irony is not dead; it is the new reality.

]]> By: Anon2 https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2841#comment-8121 Mon, 01 Nov 2004 23:40:04 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2004/11/idealism.html#comment-8121 Now that is frightening

]]> By: Anon https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2841#comment-8120 Mon, 01 Nov 2004 20:55:12 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2004/11/idealism.html#comment-8120 Funny, some might call this blog is “an interesting lesson in how idealism and rationality can become naive [in Academia].”

]]> By: th0m https://archives.lessig.org/?p=2841#comment-8119 Mon, 01 Nov 2004 15:03:58 +0000 http://lessig.org/blog/2004/11/idealism.html#comment-8119 I read 1984 at way too young of an age.

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