From your response and the prior one and search results from all over the country that these guys can be found all over the country.

I didn’t mean to suggest you literally were repeating the words of Rachel Maddow or the New York Times editorial page, but that your views appear to me to be entirely consistent with them and borne of the same framework of thought. I get confused chatting with you because you, on the one hand, claim to be so widely read / watched and then on the other to not read NYT, to not read WSJ, to not watch Rachel Maddow (who you recommended to me last summer as the best, most sophisticated spokesperson for the left). I don’t know where your views are getting shaped, but they seem to echo the views of the left leaning media that I read / see.

I literally have taken stuff you’ve written hear and seen it repeated verbatim later in newstories – like your claim that ‘regulation creates jobs’. That one so floored me that I kept an eye for it and sure enough, within days, it was popping up all over the place.

So I’m confused. It appears you are at once 100% behind the views of these folks (you once said there wasn’t a single left-leaning policy position that you disagreed with except guns) and then you seem to take offense when I say your words echo what the leading commentators say and believe. I’m not sure what the tension is in your own mind to cause this reaction.

Do you see what I am trying to say? What am I missing? What nuance is there in your thinking that makes it at once the same as yet different from them?

Re: oil permits. Sorry, but that data does not prove your point. It is not time series data that pre-dates Obama. This page shows something more like what I’m talking about, particularly the lines showing 3-yr and 1-yr historical averages. http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/292136/cost-obamas-gulf-oil-permit-slowdown

Next point: In the same way you accuse the right of being dismissive of mainsteam media, you seem equally dismissive of anything that comes from any source other than a liberal one. I use a lot of data from Heritage and similar sources because they appear to be the only people who do such analysis. It is not like I seek out conservative data per se. I simply Google stuff and read what comes up. Heritage and similar entities come up regularly. Rarely, perhaps never, do I find substantive analysis of quantitative issues by liberal media / think tanks. At various points, I have spent time specifically trying to find liberal sources, but have not found any. I even asked you at one point to suggest some. The ones you suggested were not very data-driven or analytically rigorous.

The post I did the other day comparing the WSJ and NYT editorial responses to Obama’s budget encapsulated this beautifully. The NYT commentary used practically no numbers of any kind. The WSJ commentary was organized almost entirely around numbers. More than a 10:1 ratio WSJ:NYT. This is very common.

I like numbers and prefer to ground concepts in data where possible. For whatever reason, Democrats prefer to frame things in conceptual / abstract / emotional terms and tend not to use numbers. This seems to work very, very well for them, so I guess it makes sense they go with their strong suit.

As to me being more conservative than I give myself credit for: This is perhaps true. That said, I am definitely not as conservative as you are liberal. Daily, there are things conservatives do that make me grimace – I’d run screaming from them if the alternative weren’t liberals. On the other hand, there are apparently few things liberals do that cause you any discomfort.

I think part of the explanation is that I have come to believe in recent years that liberal policies are particularly inappropriate at this time in history. In other times, like when I was younger, social inequities were the central issues of the time and needed urgent and radical overhaul. In more recent years, economic issues seem to me to have become the more central issues of the day. I think Democratic policies on that front are largely wrong and getting ‘wronger’. And not wrong in a neutral sort of way that many people say it doesn’t matter who is running the country, but wrong in a way that has negative long term consequences that I think we should best avoid. I think we are reaping the results of some of this thinking today and it has contributed to chronically slow growth rates stretching back a dozen years or more.

As to Obama being ‘all in’ with energy. I read your citations and have heard him speak about energy several times. Especially lately, he’s made more of an effort, but the more frequent commentary seems to be about castigating oil companies (and most every other kind of company) at regular turns. He also pumps alt energy much more often than other forms. Frequency wins. I think at root, he shares the left’s distaste for successful companies in general and in particular for oil companies who are, as we all know, the nastiest of the nasty companies.

In my view, he doesn’t understand the underlying economics of energy. Petroleum is just an incredibly rich, dense, and accessible source of energy. The economics of producing it will beat out wind, solar, and bio for decades, in my opinion. I am confident that it will remain the dominant form of energy for my lifetime and probably those of my nieces and nephews. The only thing that comes close is nuclear which I think we should also pursue even more aggressively.

I also support wind, solar, and bio and even believe government should be putting a lot of money into it. Probably as much as he wants to spend – I’d probably support even more. I think it’s a huge thing – mostly for the long term, but we need to steadily push it over the decades.

However, I strongly object to the role he’s carved out for government. He’s got the government engaged in commercializing a technology that doesn’t appear ready for commercialization. Government support of long-range technology is best focused on R&D, not commercialization. Government has done extraordinary things in my lifetime when it has backed academic and research organizations – like internet, like space – but it’s record of commercialization, I just don’t see it. Is there even a single successful government-funded entity that has arisen from first wave commercialization by the Federal government?By this I mean direct capital funding, not via contracts. I don’t know of any – certainly none that’s now a household name.

I think the whole issue is encapsulated in the quote you offer “And in the short-term, as we transition to renewable energy, we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas.” The problem is the timeframe – he and much of the left think it is around the corner (“short term…transition”) and it isn’t. When you say ‘short term’ in this day and age, that means ‘now’ – more or less – and it definitely is not now. This misconception, coupled with strong environmental bias, leads to strange policy behaviors.

As usual, I’ve written more than planned. Like Democrats with spending, it is hard to restrain myself.

Nice to hear from you. Hope you’ve been well.

Boy, you can write a lot. I appreciate your taking the time to offer your ideas. i can’t respond to every point, so I’ll try to hit the highlights – even so i will no doubt write a ridiculous amount of stuff:

- We see the world thru very different lenses. I basically don’t agree with much of what you’ve written — not just the factuality of it, but the whole worldview that sites behind your commentary. It feels like an episode of Rachel Maddow or something. A perfect echo of everything rattling around in the MSNBC / progressive ecosphere. I think that makes it hard for us to persuade the other — we are like a microcosm of the dialog we see on a national scale. Which is sort of weird cause I am not even that far right. But one thing I’ve realized in the past year as I’ve paid more attention to these things is how the underlying fabric of belief, casuation, priorities, and goals varies from left to right. The two sides actually seem to experience different realities — and not in the way your buddy George Lakoff believes. His stuff, while often repeated, is ridiculously lame. I guess you really can’t expect a linguist to have much insight into psychology and belief.

- I can’t relate to your cartoonish characterizations of the right and the candidates. It’s the kind of thing I hear when I tune in MSNBC or read NYT. It is like these people don’t actually know any real-life Republicans, so their views are not tempered by personal experience with actual people (who are not TV personalities). Instead, they take larger than life personas like Rush, Bill O’Reilly, and others, then wrap them together and draw a cartoon figure that they believe is ‘real’. None of these characterizations track against real life people or even against the preponderance of conservative commentators you see on/in WSJ, Fox, or wherever.

- The ‘so called’ media bias is only so called if you are on the left. It is real and ever present if you sit right of center. I recently read about a survey on this. I don’t recall the exact figures, but it was to the effect that 80% of people on the left believe the media is not biased while only 30% of people on the right believe that. I think it is also well documented that a huge majority of reporters at mainstream media outlets vote Democrat – like 70% or 80%. We’ve discussed this before. When you’re a believer, it is hard to spot when discourse is skewed in your direction – that just looks normal.

- I don’t know where you get your information about Obama having a balanced energy policy. That is crazy talk, my friend. I follow energy policy fairly closely cause I’ve been interested in it since college when the first big wave of alt energy hit in early 80s. I challenge you to find hard data to support the idea that permits have overall increased under Obama. If you find it, please share link. I have only seen data that shows less and slower permitting at the Federal level. At the state level, it has increased in many states, but Obama cannot claim credit for this – it is out of his purview. The increase in activity from state permits is what largely accounts for increase in oil/gas production. I don’t believe Obama deserves any credit for that whatsoever. Sorry. And while it is hard to fully understand what Obama ‘believes’ since he talks out of both sides of his mouth (as most politicians do), it is clear what the left in general believes about energy policy by keeping up with NYT, MSNBC, etc. There is a clear preference to rapidly decreasing fossil fuel production, increasing prices for gasoline (Steven Chu made the case for prices in the $9-$10 range some years back – turns out i actually sort of agree), dramatically expanding wind, solar, etc. even as these energy sources are uneconomic even with large gov’t subsidies, very, very high threshold for safety and environmental protection (very close to a zero tolerance threshold – I don’t support anything close to that), etc. Also, when push comes to shove, the left will actively block large wind and solar projects that might actually produce energy on a scale relevant to meeting demand because they are necessarily going to be huge and ugly, physically much, much larger than corresponding coal or nuclear plant – perfect case in point is Cape Wind in my old state. The wind farm that could never be built even in the most liberal state in the US. In addition, the left opposes building out the large scale transmission lines necessary to carry electricity from the distant locations where such large scale alt energy projects would be built. I could go on and on. But the point is that the left’s energy thinking is totally incoherent. Like many of their ideas, some of the aspirations are nice, but the actual policy ideas are incomplete and not grounded in reality.

- I do give Obama credit for the nuclear permitting. That’s a big deal. I’m in favor of nuclear and have been for years. And I agree he was not given enough credit for that. I don’t recall the NYT giving Bush much credit when he did something Democrats should otherwise like. Nonetheless, Obama did a good thing there.

- I don’t give Obama any points whatsoever on Keystone. If there was an issue in placement of the pipeline, his administration should have uncovered that years ago during the prior two environmental clearances the project received. I’m in favor of re-routing if there’s an issue (I do not know the precise details to know if there really is an issue or people just say there is). Even if there is an issue, that should have been discovered ages ago and fixed. If an issue remains – and from what I understand the disputed part of the route is on the order of 50-100 miles out of 1,700 – he should have provisionally approved it under conditions that the rerouting be proven in. To hold up the entire length of the pipeline after 3′ish years of review, including 2 prior approvals by State is, to me, to show very poor judgement and leadership. Clearly pandering to the environmental side of his base – which, apparently, is more or less the entire Democratic party. Even Joe Nocera of NYT has repeatedly written in favor of the pipeline.

- I definitely do not agree that Obama’s hand was forced to move left by GOP opposition. In my opinion, in his early months he never made the kind of centrist case I was expecting. With his gift for oratory, it’s clear that he made promises to many types of people that he did not keep, but to suggest that he was/is naturally centrist and tried to make a strong case for that and eventually gave up. I just don’t see that at all. Not even remotely. Obama moved left and lost me even before he took office by the way he shaped the stimulus. I know you believe it should have been bigger and paid for even more gov’t workers, but I disliked this immediately and have never changed my mind. That put my support in jeopardy and it went downhill from there. Then because he grossly misread the severity of the economic issues (he now admits as much), and marched energetically into the ObamaCare debacle and devoted ridiculous amounts of energy to a misguided plan. Since I’m from MA and we did something similar a while back, I am somewhat familiar with the issues and, imo, he handled this very badly. Not just the politics of it, but the actual policy. There is much not to like – as with alt energy, there is some goodness in some of the intent – e.g., to cover more people – but the overall sweep of the thing is a nightmare. Most importantly for me, it was one thing in MA to defer solutions to the cost problems, but a whole other thing when you’re talking tens of millions of people. Even now, i don’t think they have any handle on the cost side of the equation. The most interesting cost control solutions are emerging from the private sector. So, no, I don’t think he’s proven to be not centrist because of opposition from the right. Do you really believe that? I can’t imagine.

Well, there’s so much more to be mined in your comments, but I’ll leave it there.

Take care,

good timing. i am waiting on something.

yes, i grant you i am lazy and not good at reading entire books. i do spend a lot of time on this stuff – more than i should, so there are limits.

he did say in the talk most all the further explanations you suggest – that people have elements of both in them, that some people are in the middle (e.g., me), and so forth.

yes, i accept that in a general way, the way he describes the left and the right has some elements of truth to it. i’m more easily sold on the ‘nuturing’ idea for the left, but the ‘strict father’ thing might take some getting used to, in part because there are many, many conservatives, including almost all the ones i know, who are not religious.

i think if he’d offered up his ‘strict father’ model as applicable to social / religious conservatives, i’d have bought into it more easily. but by offering it up for all types, including economic conservatives, i don’t feel that works.

to be clear, he’s the one that listed those elements of the progressive ideology very specifically in a list which concluded ‘and that’s it.’ after finishing point #3.

and i agree that his general concepts are not unlike other frameworks other people have used. i guess that’s the point of my disappointment – it doesn’t seem all that insightful to me. or not that it is not insightful – surely it is – but it is not particularly new to me.

i do agree about the power of language, too. this is crucial stuff, absolutely. but again, i am very familiar with this type of thinking having spent my early years involved with some aspects of cognitive science and linguistics, including work with some of the top linguists in the country. it also doesn’t hurt that i’ve spent years in consulting and marketing and know well how the tiniest nuance of speech can affect comprehensive.

one of the most interesting parts of his talk was where he explains that progressives somehow collectively are not very informed about this. i have to say that is surprising given people like clinton and obama who are masters in the use of words.

and it explains partly why they get so upset at people like karl rove (and luntz) who apply this type of thinking to politics in very sophisticated ways.

as to the charity stuff, see this post from the other day (i was on a roll). http://johnsbytes.com/2011/11/14/conservatives-are-selfish-people-not/. it has links to a few sources. you can google it, too. ‘charities by political party’ or some such.

i don’t much buy you point that it, in a reverse logic sort of way, further proves that conservatives are exclusively driven by personal responsibility. i agree it is a central tenent, but my sense is that you and progressives vastly overplay this idea. i don’t know of anybody who is conservative who actually believes the major social programs should be abolished. i accept that some conservatives probably do believe that, but i’d be extremely, extremely surprised to see data that indicates that the majority of conservatives or republicans would choose to eliminate those programs.

just because somebody on the right says something, that does not mean every single person believes the identical same thing. the right is not that monolithic – as Lakoff eventually acknowledged in his talk.

but really the central problem i had with his ideas is that they aren’t rich enough to explain or predict specific progressive policy preferences. i don’t think these general ideas include either detailed enough constructs (maybe the book somehow knits it together better) or encompassing enough ideas.

for instance, the idea that bigger government is the path to better nuturing. how does that follow from his general principles? there are a zillion assumptions and beliefs between his principles and the idea that ‘big government is good’, let alone all the specific programs that progressives prefer. big government is not necessarily the only way that high nuturing could be achieved, but it is the way progressives prefer to obtain it. why?

i think this has to do with a belief that i got from one of your posts: progressives believe that people who work in government are inherently ‘better’ people who are able to rise above the petty behaviors that lead to bad results in the private sector. i have to admit this observation of yours has been quite a revelation to me – far more so than Lakoff’s comments. i’ve discussed it with many people and most can’t even begin to fathom why and how you believe this – there is so much evidence to the contrary – but you do – and now that i see that, i can see that many progressives believe this and it strongly guides their policy preferences.

or the example i cited at the end of the post about energy development. there are many things about domestic energy production that would achieve apparent progressive benefits: more prosperity, more safety, stronger, more secure community, etc. but in this case, progressive aversion to environmental degradation is soooo strong that it moots these other more immediate concerns.

if you push this point very far, you see that to avoid developing domestic energy, progressives are prepared for us to maintain a huge military and go to war to provide for it from overseas. this makes no sense to me and is not explained at all by his construct. now progressives probably don’t see it this way, but the reality is that it is so. if we wanted to, we could be an energy independent nation (or very close to), but we can’t even get remotely close to that because of the environmental lobby.

this was brought home the other day with the Keystone pipeline decision. here again Lakoff offers no help. the environment trumps unions / jobs? and everybody, including you, fell right in line with that. no hesitation. no question. astonishing.

i’m not sure if i am communicating this well or not. the point i’m trying to make is that i’m looking for explanation at a more micro level than the model Lakoff seems to be offering- perhaps his book offers a much deeper model that will explain these types of policy choices.

but as i wrote in a subsequent post, after giving it more thought i don’t know that it is possible to even write this stuff down because i doubt it actually fits into a coherent, internally consistent model (for either party). it is situation specific – obama’s choice on Keystone was made in the exact circumstances of the moment. no one, perhaps not even him, could have predicted that 6 months ago, much less penned a predictive model years in advance.

about the Lakoff quote I pulled. seriously, please. you are being crazy if you believe this statement of his to be true in the absolute way he has phrased it. yes, they lean towards individual responsibilty, but ‘individual responsibility alone’ – i doubt even a single conservative believes that on the entire planet. the fact that they team up into all these think tanks and so forth to advance their cause illustrates how absurd this extreme phrasing is. if even the most enthusiastic conservatives prefer help each other by working in groups, imagine how the 99% of other conservatives feel about sharing and collaboration.

this is a good example of the ‘simplistic’ piece that i don’t like. if he had a genuine appreciation for real conservatives in real life, there is no way he’d make such a extreme comment.

i can’t respond to all your points, but as to your answers to my rhetorical questions, i think you are taking this stuff way, way too far. i’d encourage you to talk with more conservatives using neutral language and see what their answers are. very few, if any, actual people would answer these questions as you have answered on their behalf. certainly not a single one that i know. and none that i read in the Wall Street Journal. not even the commentators on Fox News hold positions like this. i’m not saying none do – particularly the provacteurs – but seriously you need to start weeding the wheat from the chaff.

as to the obstruction charge against the House, it takes 2. both sides are holding their ground. neither side is relenting. if one side were giving in, then there would be votes. i see this oft repeated charge is a misdirect. why don’t the Dems just yield to the GOP, then we’d not be at loggerheads? why do you and others assume that it must be the GOP that yields? when the Dems are in opposition, it is always a ‘prinicpled’ opposition. when the GOP is in opposition, it is assumed to be venal.

i appreciate the dialog, dan, it is instructive and informative.