Rail advocates responded to the Antiplanner recent visit to Charlotte, NC, by inviting William Lind, who bills himself as “a conservative who supports rail transit,” to comment on Charlotte’s proposed Red Line project.
“Real conservatives like commuter trains,” says Lind. How does he know? Because the average income of people who ride commuter trains in Lake County, Illinois is $74,000 a year, while the average income of bus riders in that county is $14,000 a year. Lind takes it for granted that everybody knows that rich people are conservative, and in Lind’s mind rich conservatives know that they deserve to have expensive, tax-subsidized trains while poor people should be happy with relatively inexpensive tax-subsidized buses.
Unfortunately, warns Lind, some rail critics “present themselves as conservatives, but they are not.” I don’t know who he is talking about, since the Antiplanner never presented himself as conservative. Lind goes on to say that these pseudo-conservatives are really libertarians, the difference being that conservatives support rail transit “depending on the project’s merits,” while “libertarians oppose all rail transit all the time.”
If any rail transit line deserved to be opposed on its merits, it is the Red Line, which promises to greatly increase congestion and taxes but carry very few riders. On the other hand, I have never seen any person or document dictating that opposition to all rail transit all the time is part of the libertarian creed. Since I love trains at least as much as Lind, I would be glad to support a rail transit project if ever one was deserving of support (though I am admittedly skeptical that such an expensive mode of transportation will ever merit my support except in the form of my voluntary contributions to numerous tourist lines and rail heritage societies).
Lind disingenuously argues that highway users pay for 51 percent of the cost of constructing, maintaining, and operating highways, while rail users pay for 51 percent of the cost of operating trains, so “it’s a wash.” While I would quibble with his numbers, it is more important to note that he conveniently overlooks the fact that rail fares pay none of the cost of construction or maintenance, as well as the fact that projected Red Line rail fares won’t even cover a quarter, much less half, the cost of operating the line.
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Lind makes the claim that “value-capture” taxes will allow Charlotte to build the rail line while “local governments need levy no new taxes.” This is simply false. As the Antiplanner showed in detail, one-fourth of the cost of the Red Line would be paid for by TIF, which will require various tax-supported entities to choose between raising taxes or reducing services; while another quarter is to be paid for by a special assessment district tax of up to 75 cents for every $100 of value ($750 on a $100,000 building), whether individual property owners in the district benefit from or support the rail line or not. Call it what you will, that is definitely a tax increase.
Lind claims the Red Line helps “commutes of people who still drive because it will take cars off the road in rush hour.” In fact, the environmental analysis for the Red Line predicts that, because commuter trains will play havoc with traffic signal coordination, average travel speeds in 2030 will be 15 percent slower if the Red Line is built than if it is not. Lind adds that the Red Line will give people an alternative to congestion–though it will be such a poor alternative that proponents predict only about 0.3 percent of the corridor’s trips will use it.
Helicopters are an alternative to congestion. Do conservatives support government subsidized commuter helicopters? How about government subsidized commuter rocket ships? Don’t conservatives deserve commuter rocket ships?
Actually, Lind probably wouldn’t support commuter helicopters or commuter rocket ships. He is a rail fan who used to publish the New Electric Railway Journal. It is quite possible that he equates “conservative” modes of travel with nineteenth-century modes; twentieth- or twenty-first-century modes may be too liberal for him.
What is clear is that he thinks rich people deserve trains at almost any cost (to others) and that they deserve bigger subsidies than the poor, even if the poor have to help subsidize them. Thus, he concludes, the Red Line clearly “deserves conservative support.” If that’s what it means to be a conservative, then the Antiplanner definitely does not qualify.
If you only knew the power of the dark side…….I mean conservative lobbying. I assumed he was talking about the other Red Line. In Baltimore they want to build a Red Line. A 20 station 14.5 mile light rail. Red Line Now PAC is governed by a nine-member board of directors who are citizen volunteers who live and/or work along the Red Line corridor. The board members represent the Midtown, Edmondson, Canton, Fells Point, Patterson Park, and Greektown communities. Still the program has been met with criticism by residents because the full on tunnel concept has been rejected for expense in their neighborhood.
One of the Antiplanner’s strongest arguments is when he shows that light rail destroys the bus connections that used to exist.
Do the planning models really show the costs of making a connection between a bus and a train? The street rule of thumb is that every connection doubles the time of travel.
While that may seem harsh at first glance, the models need to understand that being late to work a few times is a significant life stress, so commuters have to err on the earlier side, so that doubling the commuting time is a very real calculation.
Thus, a bus to light rail to bus commute is four times as long as travelling on a bus. Not very many people can make that pay off.
O’Toole, you don’t object to carte blanc public funding of roads. Suburban trains have a rightful place in our transportation make up, though you’re not going to admit to that, because you’re a fraud!
“you don’t object to carte blanc public funding of roads”
What makes you say that? All of my books and papers on transportation advocate paying for roads exclusively with user fees. Many of the recent ones advocate replacing gas taxes with a vehicle-mile fee.
Even you have agreed with me that roads are there regardless of economic conditions.
You have nothing to complain about.
Mr. Lind wrote:
“The train will run fast enough to be time-competitive with driving (it will also offer predictable commuting times, something that disappears with severe congestion).”
But if memory serves, the service frequency is one train every 30 minutes, so that’s a lot of waiting around unless the passenger times it carefully.
“In fact, the mean earnings of rail commuters were more than $76,000; the figure for bus riders was less
than $14,000.”
That’s based on poor passengers having no viable alternative to the bus – so a poor quality bus service is provided – whereas wealthy people have the choice of a car, and so the rail service has to be quite good. It’s a pity, really, that people like Mr. Lind are so opposed to quality bus services.
“On the train, we can work on our laptop, read, or get a nap. On the road, our attention has to go to the rear bumper of the car in front of us. If we drive, we see a lot of rear bumpers, because we waste many hours stuck in traffic. Commuter trains whistle past the traffic jams at 60 miles an hour.”
That’s great! Will he be prepared to pay for these benefits out of his wallet, rather than someone else’s?
“Whenever a city moves to build more rail transit, one of the “antitransit troubadours†shows up armed with a lot of questionable numbers that purport to show it is a bad idea. One recently paid a visit to Charlotte to oppose the Red Line.”
Boo! Hiss!
Sandy Teal; Thus, a bus to light rail to bus commute is four times as long as travelling on a bus. Not very many people can make that pay off.
THWM: It isn’t, there such things as timed transfers, also you are not considering that buses have higher operating costs.
Highwayman wrote:
“THWM: It isn’t, there such things as timed transfers, also you are not considering that buses have higher operating costs.”
Operating costs have to be offset against construction costs. The World Bank produced this graph (Figure 2)
http://transportpolicy.org.uk/PublicTransport/AdvancedBuses/AdvancedBuses.htm
Unless you’re trying to move really large numbers of people, buses are cheaper.
Though construction costs for roads don’t get counted.
The Antiplanner wrote:
“Real conservatives like commuter trains,†says Lind.
This liberal and lifetime registered Democrat does not (speaking generally) like subsidized rail transit. Especially subsidized rail transit for people that can afford to ride and pay unsubsidized fares.
Are there poor people taking the train to employment centers that they could not easily reach without the train? I don’t know – but if there are, then we can subsidize the train fares of the people that cannot afford the unsubsidized fare. It might have been Bob Poole of Reason (not sure) who suggested the idea of mobility vouchers for people that need help getting to a place of employment.
And please don’t justify the (large) cost of new trains with “rich people ride the train.”
Well your attitude sure is liberal.
I’m quite sure many of our sustainability problems would be quite different if we didn’t subsidize roads and dependence solely on automobility as well. Such as: fewer would be whining at gas prices rising closer to true costs.
Jus’ sayin’.
DS
FrancisKing said:
Highwayman wrote:
“THWM: It isn’t, there such things as timed transfers, also you are not considering that buses have higher operating costs.â€
Operating costs have to be offset against construction costs. The World Bank produced this graph (Figure 2)
http://transportpolicy.org.uk/PublicTransport/AdvancedBuses/AdvancedBuses.htm
Unless you’re trying to move really large numbers of people, buses are cheaper.
THWM: Volume is a factor, but road construction costs are rarely if ever factored.
C. P. Zilliacus said: “This liberal and lifetime registered Democrat does not (speaking generally) like subsidized rail transit. Especially subsidized rail transit for people that can afford to ride and pay unsubsidized fares.”
Halleluiah!
Dan said: “I’m quite sure many of our sustainability problems would be quite different if we didn’t subsidize roads and dependence solely on automobility as well. Such as: fewer would be whining at gas prices rising closer to true costs.”
Amen!
bennett and dan, we know with certainty that highway users subsidize transit systems in several ways, including:
(1) Federal funding of transit, by way of diverting about 20% highway user revenues to the so-called “mass transit account.”
(2) Many states divert substantial portions of their highway user tax revenue to transit operating (and sometimes capital) subsidies.
(3) Many states with toll roads and toll crossings also divert highway toll revenues to transit subsidies.
(4) I am not aware of any place in the United States where transit fares are diverted to fund any type of highway project.
Randal, this post gives me two ironic gems I just have to ridicule.
First, you state:
…Lind goes on to say that these pseudo-conservatives are really libertarians, the difference being that conservatives support rail transit “depending on the project’s merits,†while “libertarians oppose all rail transit all the time.â€
I love trains at least as much as Lind, I would be glad to support a rail transit project if ever one was deserving of support (though I am admittedly skeptical that such an expensive mode of transportation will ever merit my support except in the form of my voluntary contributions to numerous tourist lines and rail heritage societies).
I’d say that Lind’s remarks are quite accurate. Libertarians tend to be the most outspokenly against rail transit, even more so than Tea Party types–whose opposition is based on their “cultural panic” and fear and hatred of all things “urban,” and/or as a convoluted way of getting at “them” people like Obama since overt racism is no longer acceptable in public.
As for you supporting “justified” rail transit, stop pulling our leg! LOL! Gee, if you can’t find support for new rail transit in places like extremely dense Chinese cities including Hong Kong–where they use some of the value created in new real estate developments to pay rail capital costs–WHERE would you support “justified” rail transit? Somehow I think the crickets will be chirping a long, long time…
And you infer, without any substantive evidence:
It is quite possible that he [Lind] equates “conservative†modes of travel with nineteenth-century modes; twentieth- or twenty-first-century modes may be too liberal for him.
No, Antiplanner, maybe he (Lind) doesn’t fall for the “19th Century” technology bull— analogy favored by anti-transit types.
Gee, as I guess I need to constantly (and increasingly tiresomely!) remind the anti-transit troubadours such as The Antiplanner, Wendell Cox, and others of that ilk, CONCRETE was created by the ROMANS but we still find it useful; Daimler and Benz did their automobile “proof of concept” in the 19th Century; Westinghouse with the help of Tesla perfected AC electric power circa the early 1890’s; the wheel was invented at least 5,000 years ago; shoe leather well before that. Oil drilling and refining were also perfected in the 19th Century, creating John D. Rockefeller’s vast monopoly-based fortune well before 1900.
So next time you decide to trot out the “19th century technology” shibboleth, keep in mind that with technology perfected in the 19th century and earlier, including railroads, our modern technological society simply would not exist in anything resembling its current state–including the automobile.
If libertarians are against “all rail transit” it is because no proposed rail transit line in the U.S. meets libertarian standards of merit, meaning they can’t pay for themselves out of user fees. If you find one that can, I guarantee you libertarians will not oppose it.
As far as your second point, I made it clear that I was only speculating that Lind would oppose commuter rocket ships. He might support commuter rocket-powered trains.
Roads don’t make money, sidewalks don’t make money. So what about libertarians double standards of merit?
AP supports paying for infrastructure with user fees. How many times must such a simple concept be explained to you? What part of “All of my books and papers on transportation advocate paying for roads exclusively with user fees.” is unclear? Or any of dozens of other comments made to you that AP supports paying for infrastructure with user fees. Yet you still insist he does not. Where outside your imagination is the double standard?
and/or as a convoluted way of getting at “them†people like Obama since overt racism is no longer acceptable in public.
Especially pathetic and sad.
Of course last paragraph in my previous post should have read:
So next time you decide to trot out the “19th century technology†shibboleth, keep in mind that with technology perfected in the 19th century and earlier, including railroads, our modern technological society simply COULD not exist in anything resembling its current state–including the automobile.
msetty said: “Tea Party types–whose opposition is based on their “cultural panic†and fear and hatred of all things “urban,†and/or as a convoluted way of getting at “them†people like Obama since overt racism is no longer acceptable in public.”
msetty should stick to transportation, because he’s inaccurate when he attempts to attribute valid Tea Party criticism of Obama to racism. Based on his nasty comment, I’d guess that he’s never been to an actual Tea Party event. Tea Partiers are not racist. Tea Partiers are, however, fearful that Obama’s overspending is sending this country to the poorhouse. Race has NOTHING to do with this.
The San Diego Union-Tribune explains this in simple terms that even msetty could understand when they write “It’s math, not politics: Vast debt a killer.”
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/feb/15/its-math-not-politics-vast-debt-a-killer/
The San Diego Union-Tribune explains this in simple terms that even msetty could understand when they write “It’s math, not politics: Vast debt a killer.â€
Cultural motives aside, it can’t be public finance motives either, as we see Yurp teetering on a precipice from austerity. We all know we need to cut debt. Just not until recovery is well underway.
[/basic finance]
DS
@ msetty: The wheel may have been invented 5000 years ago but it took us 5000+ years to put them on our luggage.
In regards to Rockefeller. Rockefeller was called a monopolist, but he wasn’t one. He had well over a hundred competitors in his day, including big companies like Texaco and Gulf which still stand today. No one was ever forced to purchase his oil. Monopolies usually only exist in the presence of some sort state protection. Prior to the 1990’s Microsoft barely spent a dime on lobbying to the political class. Now they spend nearly 100 million where they could otherwise spend the capital on inventing; all because they were accused of being monopolies and excessive regulations. Far from it they have many competing firms. IBM, Sun, Cisco, Apple. Is it coincidence that all that creation and technical brilliance happened in San Francisco and Seattle, the two metro areas farthest from Washington DC obsessive bureaucracy? I doubt it. Rockefeller got rich by finding cheaper ways to get oil products to the market. His competitors vilified him and called him a robberbaron because he “stole†their customers by lowering prices. Ignorant reporters looking for a scoop simply repeated their complaints. In truth he wasn’t a robber or a baron; he wasn’t born rich (Young Rockefeller did his share of the regular household chores, and earned extra money raising turkeys, selling potatoes and candy, and eventually loaning small sums of money to neighbors). Rockefeller’s price cuts made life better. Poor people used to go to bed when it got dark, but thanks to Rockefeller, they could afford kerosene fuel for lanterns and stay up and read at night. Rockefeller’s “greed†may have even saved the whales. When he lowered the price of kerosene drastically, he eliminated the need for whale oil, and the slaughter of whales suddenly stopped and for nearly 100 years whale populations all but returned to normal. Bet your kids won’t read “Rockefeller saved the whales†in environmental studies class. I think the fact that Japan kills hundreds of whales a year (for what reason I have no idea) is far worse.
Adjusting for inflation he was one of the the wealthiest people in history. Rockefeller spent the last 40 years of his life in retirement. His fortune was mainly used to create the modern systematic approach of targeted philanthropy with foundations that had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research.
Hugh, you’re in denial.
Many of the teabaggers ARE racist, such as one of my neighbors. You’re blind if you didn’t see the many racist signs that showed up when the Tea Party rallies were going full steam.
Some people still can’t stand the fact that a BLACK MAN was elected President. The argument about spending and debt is mostly a crock of sh–.
I seriously doubt a “Tea Party” movement would have sprouted nearly as quickly if Hilary Clinton was in the White House–though the usual right wing suspects like Faux News, that fat asshole Limbaugh, Heil Hannity and others would be crying about the liburals, like they did when Clinton was in the White House (come to think of it, they STILL yammered about the eevil libruals even when the GOP controlled the House, Senate and White House…but I digress).
Heck msetty, cuss all you like without censorship, just drop your references to race please. Nobody cares about that.
Lind seems to have a very strange definition of merit.
msetty, you’re dead-ass wrong if you are going to generalize about a movement just because you have an asshole neighbor. You can say ONE “teabagger” is racist but DON’T generalize. Ever been to a Tea Party? I have. The only racists are the leftists who infiltrate the event in order to fool gullible people like you into thinking bad things about the Tea Party.
And your stubborn insistence that anyone who objects to the direction Obama’s taking this country is racist is nonsense. I don’t want this country to end up like Greece. If you’d quit relying on BSNBC for your news, you might actually learn something. Obama’s latest budget is a disaster and it doesn’t matter that he’s black:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/obama%E2%80%99s-budget-bleeds-red-ink/?singlepage=true
I’m sure we all recall how many folks posted pix of racist signs they saw at TeaBagger rallies, so to mischaracterize as ‘one neighbor’ don’t hunt. The ideology is simply a small fraction of society, self-sorted into a particular demographic and ideology with similar characteristics. The argy-bargy is what we expect from a society where we are today, divided and in decline. All the tribes are thrashing about looking for validity. Nothing more. Our dysfunctional politics allows some tribes to come to power for temporary advantage. Nothing more.
DS
Couldn’t agree more Dan. See the conversation below. Blinded by the right. Leftist hypocrisies. The road goes on forever and the song never ends.
Hugh, you link to where the Instaputz hangs out?? How precious!
Well, here’s a more credible website: http://instaputz.blogspot.com/.
Hugh, like most right wingers, you can’t seem to think outside “black and white” and I don’t mean race in this instance. This statement of yours is essentially a lie, and bullshit:
And your stubborn insistence that anyone who objects to the direction Obama’s taking this country is racist is nonsense.
I NEVER said ALL opposition to Obama is racist; that may be what you thought you read/heard, but your interpretation abilities are deficient. I said SOME opposition to OBAMA is based on his race, certainly a significant percentage. Similarly, I didn’t say ALL Teabaggers are racist, just that a significant number are, e.g., enough to undermine their credibility.
YOUR credibility goes down when you distort what your opponents say. I understand that there a lot of conservatives, fiscal and otherwise, that strongly disagree with Obama’s direction and that doesn’t make them racists.
On the other hand, get through your thick skull that THERE ARE a lot of racists in the Republican Party; why else would Gingrich, for example, say things like Obama is the “food stamp president” except to blow a racist “dog whistle?”
Similarly, many wing-nutters like to claim gasoline prices “doubled” since Obama came into office–never mind that under Bush gasoline prices PEAKED at over $4.00/gallon average in summer 2008, and CRASHED nearly 60% TEMPORARILY as the late 2008 economic crisis was in full swing. You remember THAT, don’t you?
For one, I’m not intimidated by, and am sick and tired of, right wing bullshit rhetoric and falsehoods. I’m going to call it out whenever appropriate. And I’m not sorry if you don’t like it.
msetty, you are a hypocrite. Grow up. Stop doing the same thing that you complain the “right wingers†do.
You hurt your case when you use the epithet “teabaggers.” It would be as if I called you a “leftist asshole.” That would be uncalled for so I won’t do it.
You’re now trying to mollify your statement to say that “significant number are, e.g., enough to undermine their credibility.” Still wrong. The Tea Party objects to Obama’s deficit spending. Hell, even Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner conceded that the administration didn’t even attempt to do anything about the nation’s long-term debt problem:
“Earlier today, he(Geithner) told the Senate Budget Committee that long-term spending would be “unsustainable” even if Obama’s budget was fully adopted. Later, in a separate hearing, he explained to House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., that the only intention of the Obama budget was to address deficits in the next decade, not to put the nation on a sustainable fiscal path. He also trashed Ryan’s budget, which does actually solve the problem, for putting too much of a burden on seniors to pay for health care.”
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/admin-stops-pretending-it-has-long-term-debt-plan/379326
You started this flame war by making a blanket statement distorting what one’s opponents say. Specifically, you lumped all Tea Partiers into the “racist†category because you don’t like your neighbor. That’s a false, ad hominem statement that does nothing to help your credibility on this board.
For one, I’m not intimidated by, and am sick and tired of, left wing bullshit rhetoric and falsehoods. I’m going to call it out whenever appropriate. And I’m not sorry if you don’t like it. If you want to be taken seriously as a participant here, cut out the nonsense of juvenile name-calling. If you want to argue policy fine. But just because someone disagrees with you on the President’s fiscal policies, that does not make them a racist. Got that? So cut it out with the ignorant name calling. If you want to argue facts, fine, but stop the ad hominem nonsense. Get a life.
That should be “modify” not “mollify” but the point remains that msetty’s original statement was “even more so than Tea Party types–whose opposition is based on their ‘cultural panic’ and fear and hatred of all things ‘urban’.”
Now contrary to what msetty wants us to believe, the original statement does not say “SOME opposition to OBAMA is based on his race.” The original statement makes no such qualification and is therefore a slam against everybody who has ever been to a Tea Party, including me. msetty’s trying to change his tune now that someone’s pointed this out.
Objection to Obama is due to his policies and philosophy, which has nothing to do with his race. As Jonah Goldberg points out, “Meanwhile, Obama casts himself as the humble servant of the 99 percent, even as he forklifts cash from Wall Street into his campaign coffers and exploits the very sort of super PACs he not long ago claimed were a ‘threat to democracy.'”
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/291284/obama-s-cynicism-me-not-thee-jonah-goldberg
When liberals play the race card, it is their “white” flag. They have no other argument to make, and rather than be honest, they try to save face by subtracting from the 1960s civil rights movement for their cover.
In an time when the President and Attorney General are black, it is just a sad attempt to relive a long ago era. But, hey, that stark black and white retrograde approach will probably win the Oscar for Best Picture. How appropriate.
When liberals play the race card, it is their “white†flag. They have no other argument to make, and rather than be honest, they try to save face by subtracting from the 1960s civil rights movement for their cover.
Yet another bull— blanket statement distorting what one’s opponents say. So there’s no longer racism in the U.S.? I’ll be more polite to you…you’re head is just rammed deeply into the sand, while many right wingers’ it’s mainly up their arses…
You claim 30% of the country is racist. I say you are playing the race card as your last weakest argument. Then you say “there is at least one racist in the US”. So I was wrong, you did have a weaker argument left.
There is huge government racism in the US. It is 40 times more difficult for an Asian to get into a University of California school than a black. I doubt that is the Tea Party’s fault.
msetty, you are a hypocrite. Grow up. Stop doing the same thing that you complain the “right wingers” do. You started this flame war by making a blanket statement distorting what one’s opponents say. Specifically, you lumped all Tea Partiers into the “racist” category because you don’t like your neighbor. That’s a false, ad hominem statement that does nothing to help your credibility on this board.
If you want to be taken seriously as a participant here, cut out the nonsense of juvenile name-calling. If you want to argue policy fine. But just because someone disagrees with you on the President’s fiscal policies, that does not make them a racist. Got that? So cut it out with the ignorant name calling. If you want to argue facts, fine, but stop the ad hominem nonsense. Get a life.
Hugh, this is well-stated (and I am absolutely not a fan of so-called Tea Partiers that happen to be very dependent on taxpayer-funded handouts (including Social Security and Medicare), as recently described by the N.Y. Times here and further discussed today in a Paul Krugman op-ed here.
Thanks. We should be able to disagree, as you and I obviously do, without making nasty ad hominem juvenile name-calling nonsense. Regarding taxpayer-funded handouts, it doesn’t matter who gets them; they’re bad if they lead to the country going broke.
THWM: Volume is a factor, but road construction costs are rarely if ever factored.
That’s because buses only take up a very small proportion of the roads, and every bus can carry (in principle) 50 car drivers, so the use of buses reduces traffic on the roads. By contrast the rail system uses the whole of the rails, and has to factor the cost of the expensive infrastructure into the costs.
There are some examples of rail that really work. Heathrow Terminal 5 has a really neat rail system, which connects the terminal building to the wide-spread gates. Elevators are examples of rail systems, but vertical. Funicular systems work well in ski resorts etc.
You’re evading the issue and rail is not expensive. You could also just as well compare parks and car parks.
Jardonn, you’re quite self-righteous and still have your head stuck firmly in the sands of denial.
Here is a quote where YOU generalize about the alleged dearth of racists at Tea Party meetings and rallies:
The only racists are the leftists who infiltrate the event in order to fool gullible people like you into thinking bad things about the Tea Party.
More of a blanket statement than anything I’ve said. And documented quite heavily to be wrong. Sure, there were a few “liberal” (sic) infiltrators here and there, but it’s also heavily documented on YouTube and elsewhere about the hundreds who had various racist signs and symbolism at many Tea Party events.
And Jardonn, you continue to mis-characterize what I said. You still fail to grasp what the very important qualifier “and/or” means. Not every Tea Party type is racist but virtually all suffer from “culture panic.”
The unifying Tea Party mantras from Palin on down are (1) “we’re the real Americans” [meaning rural, suburban and exurban dwellers, explicitly NOT “urban” dwellers] and (2) “take the country back” from “__________” e.g., fill in [their] favorite boogeyman–as Gingrich and other Republican candidates know too well, e.g., that blowing right wing dog whistles is an all-purpose, very effective tactic for manipulating low information voters.
Some of the stuff posted here makes me wonder if we’re not seeing examples of the Internet “Poe’s Law” in action. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law.
Here is a link to an anthropological analysis of the Tea Party movement by serious and objective political scientists that corroborate my points: http://faculty.washington.edu/mbarreto/papers/teaparty_PPST.pdf.
If that is an objective article, then the Sean Hannity Show is the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour.
we find that Tea Party sympathizers are not mainstream conservatives, but rather, they hold a strong sense of out-group anxiety and a concern over the social and demographic changes in America.
Are you claiming the thesis is supported only by biased data sources? Do you have informtion that shows otherwise? Do share!
DS
That article is why social science has such a poor reputation. They use ridiculous “categories” of political thought and a very dumb survey and then use it to pontificate on the political meaning of millions of people.
Amazingly, they find through “science” that all their own pre-existing political views are confirmed. For some reason, that has how most social “science” academic work ends up.
I hope you all are just posturing and trading political barbs.
If you folks seriously think the Tea Party is racist, then I feel very sorry for you. You need to get out and meet real people, and not just cower with a few people who think like you do. Same thing in principle with the Occupy Wall Street opponents.
Maybe you should ride public transit and meet a sampling of the real public? Here is a hint: You will meet lots of non-liberals and critics of public subsidies on public transit.
There are plenty of racist teabaggers, just as there are anti-semitic OWS types.
The main stream media sure spent a lot of time on the worst 1% of Tea Party signs. Then when the OWS folks appeared, they suddenly discovered how unfair that approach would be. So now the main stream media rule is that the worst 20% of racist signs, rapes, murders, suicides, and other violence does not define the larger movement.
Teabaggers, aren’t even honest about the street in front of their homes.
Sandy Teal:
I hope you all are just posturing and trading political barbs.
If you folks seriously think the Tea Party is racist, then I feel very sorry for you. You need to get out and meet real people, and not just cower with a few people who think like you do. Same thing in principle with the Occupy Wall Street opponents.
Perhaps YOU should get out more. Unfortunately, there are too many people, I guess like Sandy and Hugh, and others, that think because people like me me point out the noxious beliefs of some people such as the large number of racists in the Tea Party movement–or those reacting against social, economic, or cultural changes they feel threaten their place in U.S. society–that somehow I think they are “evil” or “darth vaderish” or whatever. Well, 99% are not (I’ll make exceptions for politicians such as Gingrich; but that’s a different kettle of fish).
I find I agree with The Antiplanner on almost nothing he writes or blogs about, but I know from first-hand experience that Randal is a very nice guy at the personal level. So it is with most Tea Partiers I know here in the Napa Valley. But many of them still have ugly resentments and fears that translate to misguided and ugly politics, and make reasoned discussion and attempts at solutions impossible.
As a practical matter, this has the same outcome as I would have suffered over the years if I hadn’t determined decades ago NOT to get into religious (OR political!) discussions with those relatives who are fundamentalist Protestants; such discussions are irrelevant to relationships with them, would only ruffle feathers and hurt feelings, and would make personal enemies, and was utterly pointless, too. Such an approach also had the beneficial effect of minimizing proseltysing on their part.
Of course, I will continue being very argumentative on The Antiplanner and other political blogs; I’ll never convert most of my opponents, but it greatly helps to understand their arguments–and hone mine. Thanks for being such implacable foils, Sandy, Hugh, et al; you’re to me as Rommel was to Patton after Old Blood n’ Guts read Rommel’s books on tank warfare!
“He that wrestles with us strengthens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”
— Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
msetty –
I find it is easy to allege evil motivations to those who disagree with me. If I work to understand those people, I almost always find good motivations behind their views, even if I don’t agree with their ultimate conclusion.
I do find there are some evil people out there, but not very many, and they generally don’t care enough about others to argue politics or religion.
There’s nothing redeeming about O’Toole, Cox, Rubin, Zilliacus, Karlock, etc.
They’re just liars and crooks.
They use ridiculous “categories†of political thought and a very dumb survey and then use it to pontificate on the political meaning of millions of people.
Amazingly, they find through “science†that all their own pre-existing political views are confirmed. For some reason, that has how most social “science†academic work ends up.
o Simply stating it is ridiculous doesn’t make it so.
o Simply stating a survey is dumb doesn’t make it so.
o Simply stating they confirmed their pre-existing views doesn’t make it so, nor does it mean finding evidence that confirms a hypothesis means they ignored other evidence to the contrary.
o Denigrating social science doesn’t work either when the denigration is done on false premises.
IOW: you didn’t support your argument in any way whatsoever. Simply typing some words isn’t refutation.
Thanks!
DS
Whatever, Dan. The high school debate club teaches that at last resort, argue that the other side has the burden of proof and hasn’t proven it to the 99th degree.
I graduated from high school.
The rules of rhetoric have not changed for about 2300 years. The rules of civil society for supporting your argument are just as old. No one expects the usual suspects here to know the rules, but sometimes its fun to be reminded how it goes for some.
DS
2300 years ago Plato asked Socrates “Sir, why can’t we paint 35% of the population as extremists others”.
Socrates answered “If 35% on the right is extreme, then 35% on the left is extreme. Then by definition the middle would be more extreme than non-extremists”.
2300 years ago Plato asked Socrates …non-extremistsâ€.
Right. You can’t back or support your arguments. We know.
DS
“Siri, remind me how it is a waste of time to respond to Dan on the Antiplanner website”.
iPhone: “I reminded you before, but you didn’t listen”.
Gee, it is appalling that some people just can’t seem to “get their head around the fact” that racism is still a large-scale phenomenon in the U.S. and motivates how a significant percentage of people vote. Overt racism has declined over time as it steadily becomes less socially acceptable; hidden racism certainly has also declined over time in parallel, but is still a large enough factor to have sleazoid politicians such as Gingrich feels it is helpful to blow racist dog whistles such as Obama is the “food stamp president.”
Of course, “Exhibit A” that racism has declined over time now occupies the White House (sic).
But only those in denial will claim that racism is no longer a significant factor in current U.S. politics. And no amount of vitriol or claims I’m “throwing mud” at the Tea Partiers and other groups with a large percentage of racist motivation will change the facts on the ground.
You are so very right.
The US Supreme Court today elected to hear a case about whether a University can use decide whether to admit a student based on their race is actually discriminating on the basis of race.
The Asian-Americans who face 40 times as hard admittance standards as others based solely on race are waiting to hear an answer.
If the major Republican presidential candidates like Santorum aren’t blowing racist or other extremist dog whistles, then what the hell is the linked article below all about??!! And then they lie through their teeth about what they said!!
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/20/santorum-denies-hitler-obama-comparison/.