You're not reading me very carefully if you don't think this is meant to apply to some of the hopes people are vesting in Obama. It's the policies and underlying philosophies that matter, not the particular person's character. Right now I rate Obama as far more likely to do some of the things that I think are important, not the least of which because McCain seems so indifferent to the mistakes of the last eight years. As sometimes you seem.

There's a position you craft on electoral politics and governmental ethics which frustrates me a little bit. Maybe you see the same in me, but what I hear from you a lot is a kind of fastidiousness about electoral politics or critiques of current governmental practices and ethics--a sort of "Come on, this is the way it always is, all governments are corrupt, everyone tortures, electoral politics is always a sham, grow up and get over it." Ok then, but in which case a lot of your own complaints about expert elitism, environmental malpractice, and so on can't very well stand up against that sort of "that's the way it is": all of the stuff that frustrates you is just one more thing that "is the way that it is". If you were just bemused, detached, watching the world go round and round, then ok, but you're not. You have definite things you'd like to see happen and definite views about scoundrels of all kinds.

I don't think of your usual arguments as partisan, but as having broad interest and applicability from a variety of positions. This is why the sort of backdoor Republicanism that you throw out at times really frustrates me. I don't see any real alignment between the last eight years of policy and the kind of semi-libertarian arguments you make about distributed expertise, skepticism about institutions and policy, and so on. But at times the partisan edge, though you declaim it, strikes me as unmistakeably there--say, in the utterly meaningless, trite, talk-radio phrase "Bush Derangement Syndrome" as a hand-waving dismissal of any substantive argument about this Administration. In a way, that depresses me just as much as the meaningless jabbering over at the highly partisan blogs--what's the point to thinking through things in a public space if what you get back is that kind of passive-aggressive sloganeering? If you want to go post that phrase at the Daily Kos, I suppose you're entitled, but if you've got a beef with something substantive I've said about the Bush Administration, then let's talk substance--not talk-radio jabs or sudden attacks of world-weary conviction that this is just the way that politicians behave, nothing to see here, move along.

Hi Timothy,

Actually, I did suspect that your point was general, if unspoken, and used it as an opportunity to vent about my worries. I even wondered if it was a conversational ploy, an intentional omission to draw out comments since the later part of your post was about such things.

The thread that runs through my complaints about government in general and environmental issues in particular is that government is a weak tool and the wrong tool for most of these things. When I say, in your words, "all governments are corrupt, everyone tortures, electoral politics is always a sham, grow up" I don't say it to dismiss it. The prescription isn't to "get over it" it is to work to stop it, to diminish their power since they will always do harm.

I think that what you call "backdoor Republicanism" seems so to you because you are more of a front door Democrat. . . with caveats. Republicans don't see me that way. They are as critical as you are or more so. I've had the experience of being linked and quoted by some of them for one post, and then having it redacted when they learn more about my views. I'm neither, of course, though it is inescapable that one or the other or both will sometimes take positions that seem right to me, and I sometimes say so. But it is the issue, not the party, that gets my praise.

BDS doesn't refer to normal substantive argument, it refers to the inability to see anything good at any time. It's a particular strain of yellow-dogism gone off the rails about a particular President. There is seldom any substance at all to the arguments of BDS victims.

You are not the subject of this post. I used a portion of your post to help me make a point about “idealistic, rhetorical, politics”. It worries me right now. That Republicans do not pose this same threat is a simple fact, not support for them. If they lose they will go comparatively quietly, as they should. My prefernece is always for divided government with one party in Congress and the other in the executive. I don't care which is which.

The policies that Republicans have made, or rather not made, that I approve of relate mostly to the environment. But, they don't do things for reasons that I admire, and I don't approve of their whole package. They resist the extremes of special interest NGOs and environmental movement types, especially the watermelons, since they have a different political philosophy. I approve of that because it is good for the environment and society, even though I don't have the same political views.

But I've been a harsh critic of biofuels in general and subsidies for them in particular since before it became fashionable, and the Republicans are as bad as the Democrats on that issue. Similarly, their foot dragging about CO2 regulation seems good to me because the proposed regulations, taxes and other policy proposals will do nothing to reduce global CO2. They are just pork feasts for special interests that distract us from useful analysis and prescription. But that doesn't mean that there are no useful policies, such as research funding, that would be good.

I didn't support war as a response to terrorism but once at war did support helping those who had been hammered to got back on their feet. Lately I'm wondering if I saw that clearly since the results appear to be better than I expected. It's still too soon to tell.

In my view you would agree with me on all of these things if you thought them through unhindered by affiliation. I see it as mostly a difference in style, fashion, accent and such. We come from opposite sides of the tracks. That's why I am able to use your words so often to make my points, yet you can't use mine. I'm from the wrong side.

In a way, Gary, I think that's another part of what Lessing's quote makes me think of: the narcissism of imagining oneself to be unfiltered or unaffiliated. (Not to mention the ineffectiveness of that understanding of oneself in terms of political outcomes: it rather restricts the range of possible alliances.) I don't generally jump off from anyone else's blogged words, if you haven't noticed--it's not you and it's got nothing to do with your side. I like to start building content from whatever I'm thinking, maybe in a general sense from what I'm reacting to. I guess one of the things I'm hoping for out there is that bloggers be able to be reflective, not just on the attack, to ask aloud, "Why do I think this? Am I right to think it? Are there other ways to see it?" That kind of approach should keep anyone trying it from thinking "I am unhindered by affiliation". Or, "That guy is me only he has one weak habit of mind that keeps him from being me". One of the basic conceits of the kind of pooling of generalized knowledge that you often celebrate is that heterogeneity (including in affiliation or philosophical predisposition) makes that pooling stronger, not weaker. If that's so, it puts the burden on you to call into question any thought of "the wrong side" in the way you explain it here.

Affiliation is not necessary, it's a habit. That doesn't mean that one will not have priors, it means that you don't join a gang. There is a human impulse to buddy up, to join up, but that's emotion rather than intellect talking. The intellectual decision, even when made without much thought, to buy into the gang system has long been debated. I find the arguments of those who speak against such things, dating back to before this nation was founded, to be most reasonable since the consequences degrade society. In my view the impulse to join up should be resisted like any other inappropriate emotion. It's not a good way to achieve your objectives.

I seldom speak of "pooling of generalized knowledge". I speak of ad hoc associations of experts with specialized knowledge and differing heuristics as being effective problem solvers. It may be that pooled generalized knowledge can out perform non-diverse pools of experts on some tasks, but that isn't so interesting to me. Such pools are a little better, but diverse pools of experts are a lot better, the best that I'm aware of. It's worth understanding these differences. We've discussed it many times but the idea seems to always slip away from you.

We have a great many differences. I do think that on the few things I mentioned we are more similar than different, but it's just a few things. Many others are divergent, in some cases wildly divergent. This is also worth trying to understand. People can set aside their differences and talk about the things that they have in common. This is the basis of community.