It’s very tiresome when the partisans get going, from both sides. They are arguing with something that doesn’t exist, but you can’t tell them — they just keep on going.

Speaking of Brad DeLong-Did you see his latest bemoaning that our “gilded” times have not produced a second Teddy Roosevelt/progressive reaction?

Has he not been listening to Obama’s class war rhetoric and insistence on raising tax rates on the rich even if it does not produce more revenue for the government or help pay down trhe debt?

Lincoln and the back to Africa movement-such a tolerant saint he was

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8319858/Abraham-Lincoln-wanted-to-deport-slaves-to-new-colonies.html

Didn’t you say once “argue up, not down?” I get arguing against the general positions taken by the critic, because they are common amongst others, but why take time to hit this simpleton specifically? It’s not much of a fight. It doesn’t seem worth any effort. They are “informed” by certain ideas, and those seem to need the most attacking. This is just low hanging fruit.

Well, there is also the fact that her arguments were so elementarily false, they are very common amongst those on the left, and most of us are pretty familiar with the standard falsifications of those arguments, that it can be fun and entertaining to easily smack them down for a good laugh. Plus, since some of these ideas are so prevalent in today’s conventional wisdom, and the reasoned rebuttals certainly aren’t as common to most modes of popular media, it allows you to give the average Joe something to ponder. Unfortunately, many people that I know just repeat everything the TV told them, you essentially attacked that dynamic.

You can’t really pass up an opportunity like that, especially when they’re throwing it right into your lap (almost forcefully). You take it and run with it.

I would have done the same thing, and I actually *do* do the same thing, just on a smaller scale and with less intellectual rigor.

A midget perhaps but not an atypical midget. That’s why I think there’s value in pointing it out. This might sound bad but ultimately I think that since these type of people don’t listen to reason and evidence at all, that the only thing that can combat them is basically public shaming. Not with insults but by showcasing how poor their arguments are as Tom has done. Eventually they may not feel confident in their views as much. They’ll never enthusiastically embrace freedom but maybe someday they’ll begrudgingly accept it if being a statist becomes a less respectable thing.

Tom

At least Krugman can pretend to be coherent.