Is GM Part of a Left-Wing Jihad? Is GEICO? Or is this just Capitalism at Work?

Oh, how delicious is this report at The Daily Beast? It seems those dastardly capitalists are out there trying to censor the speech of reactionary blowhards like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage etc., etc. etc. . . . The capitalists, in large numbers, are withdrawing advertising support from the right wing talkers.

Apparently, the right-wing is desperately trying to depict this as a 'left-wing jihad' against conservative talk radio. But for cryin' out loud, how hard to you have to squint to make General Motors appear either left-wing or jihadist? Does conservative paranoia know no bounds? Well, of course, GM did take the bailout money. Perhaps there was a secret clause in the deal they struck with the Obama-ites that compels the company to find an excuse - any excuse - to withdraw advertising dollars from Rush and the seven dwarfs? What about GEICO? Maybe the dreaded EPA plans to remove Geckos from the endangered species list? OK! OK! Never mind!

Perhaps it simply is the case that capitalists try not to go really, really far out of the way to belittle and insult a significant segment of their potential customer base. Self-interest does not mix well with passions like, say, bigotry or blind hatred. (Nerd alert: On this I recommend an oldish essay by Stephen Holmes called "The Secret History of Self-Interest.") That doesn't mean that capitalist firms always successfully avoid acting on such bases. But this is a pretty easy case.

Make the inference. Lots and lots of women use birth control or have sisters, friends, daughters, nieces, granddaughters, who do. Even if Rush, et. al. now grasp that publicly calling all those women sluts and whores for doing so and for expecting third party insurance to cover the cost, we can plausibly suspect that the boys still think that way. Women of childbearing age and older are a big market (see The Beast report for figures). You are the decider in some firm (say GEICO) and you want to sell stuff to that market segment. Are you going to create even the appearance of supporting sexist blowhards who consider your potential customers to be sluts and whores? Isn't capitalism terrific?

Steve Landsburg (yet again)

Well, one notable fact about economists is that they live in model-land, and models are not always good at incorporating relevant features of reality. In fact, they are often best at distorting reality in ways that help us appreciate some feature of it more fully and clearly. I already have explained here and here why Steve Landsburg's inability to discriminate between the distorted world of economic models and actual life creates an intellectual and ethical mess for him.

Sometimes, though, models fail. That is especially so when they don't get the relevant matters right. Since Steve's model of reality places sex at the center of Sandra Fluke's world he gets things pretty systematically wrong. Because he was so concerned to endorse the views spouted by the sex-obsessed Rush Limbaugh, Landsburg neglected to notice this very basic feature of Sandra Fluke's initial testimony:

Fluke was not, as Limbaugh and Landsburg have suggested, "demanding" that taxpayers pay for her to have sex; her testimony was originally part of a debate about whether religious institutions should be required to provide access to contraception. Her argument focused primarily on the medical (and non-contraceptive) uses of birth control [source].

Of course, it was the Republican majority on the House Oversight Committee that prevented her from testifying in the first place. They preferred to elicit the insights of a bunch of old men, mostly clerics, on the matter. No matter.

Instead of simply writing a post that said "Here are a half dozen (or three or thirty seven) reasons why contraception should not be covered by medical insurance plans," Steve felt compelled to lead with an endorsement of Limbaugh's paternalistic, sexist attack on Fluke. This led him to endorse basically the same sort of paternalistic, sexist view of Fluke as did Rush. Dumb and dumber.

Steve Landsburg - Again

Earlier today I posted on the fracas growing up around the decision of one of my colleagues at the U of R, Steve Landsburg, to offer a defense of Rush Limbaugh and his name calling. I found the case he made pretty dumb. I thought his follow up to the initial post was pretty dumb too. I still do. So I am not taking back the earlier post. But talking to people on campus today I thought more about why I find Landsburg's views dumb. And, of course, Steve has been picking the scab so to speak. So what follows are a couple more reasons.

Before proceeding, however, I think it is important to say that people, even pretty smart ones, should be allowed to say dumb things. But they also ought to expect that, when they do, others will argue back. I don't take issue, in my earlier post or here, with Landsburg's remarks about legalizing prostitution or the little toy models he trots out to develop his argument or his long, pretty much unpersuasive attempt to deflate critics. That stuff is the side show. What has sparked the reaction on campus and commentary elsewhere [1*] [2] is his effort to endorse Limbaugh without actually appearing to be as crass. I simply do not think Landsburg comes at all close to steering clear of the big pile of crap Rush stepped in.

(1) A grammatical observation: The words slut and prostitute are nouns. (Well, prostitute can be a verb, as in 'to prostitute oneself in the name of an inane ideology like libertarianism.') That surely is the way that Limbaugh used them when he claimed that Sandra Fluke is a slut and a prostitute. Steve Landsburg says this about Limbaugh's observations:

To his credit, Rush stepped in . . . with a spot-on analogy: If I can reasonably be required to pay for someone else’s sex life (absent any argument about externalities or other market failures), then I can reasonably demand to share in the benefits. His dense and humorless critics notwithstanding, I am 99% sure that Rush doesn’t actually advocate mandatory on-line sex videos. What he advocates is logical consistency and an appreciation for ethical symmetry. So do I. Color me jealous for not having thought of this analogy myself.

There’s one place where I part company with Rush, though: He wants to brand Ms. Fluke a “slut” because, he says, she’s demanding to be paid for sex. There are two things wrong here. First, the word “slut” connotes (to me at least) precisely the sort of joyous enthusiasm that would render payment superfluous. A far better word might have been “prostitute” (or a five-letter synonym therefor), but that’s still wrong because Ms. Fluke is not in fact demanding to be paid for sex. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) She will, as I understand it, be having sex whether she gets paid or not. Her demand is to be paid. The right word for that is something much closer to “extortionist”. Or better yet, “extortionist with an overweening sense of entitlement”. Is there a single word for that?

Two points are in order. Since extortion typically requires threats or intimidation, it is hard to see how Sandra Fluke is extorting anyone. (I return to this below.) So, we are back with Limbaugh's verbiage. Second, because slut and prostitute are nouns, they are statuses we attribute to other people. Hence Limbaugh called Fluke a slut and a prostitute. They are not words we attribute to a "position." That means that the fine distinction Landsburg seeks to draw - "While Ms. Fluke herself deserves the same basic respect we owe to any human being, her position - which is what’s at issue here - deserves none whatsoever. It deserves only to be ridiculed, mocked and jeered. To treat it with respect would be a travesty." - is pure crap. A position cannot be a whore or a hooker, a lady of the evening or a woman of ill-repute. Simply put, the dodge fails. Perhaps that makes me "dense and humorless," but I am not sure how. Unless, of course, referring to someone like Ms. Fluke as a slut or a prostitute might be defensible in this circumstance. Maybe Landsburg actually thinks so. Maybe not. I think there are good reasons why he shouldn't.

(2) A fable: Imagine a man, perhaps he is a clever economist, teaching at a rich, private University. He has a daughter or wife, or sister, or girlfriend; and his female loved-one has insurance. Indeed, she works for the same company as I and is covered by the same insurance carrier. That insurance covers contraception (among many other things). And perhaps the clever economist's female loved one takes advantage of that particular benefit. Perhaps she does not, but thinks she might, at some future time, do so.

Now, insurance plans are ways of pooling risk, in this case of various medical conditions including, say, pregnancy and childbirth. I, an unmarried man with only male children, may never actually use the contraception benefit. But, because I have to pay the same premium regardless of whether or not I do take advantage of it, some small part of my premium goes toward funding the contraception benefit. Hence, some part of my premium is going to fund the clever economist's female loved one's access to contraception. Similarly, some part of my premium will be going to underwrite the costs incurred by a lot of other people for a lot of other medical services of which I might or might not ever need to avail myself.

But let's stick to the contraception case. Does the fact that I am paying for the clever economist's female loved one's contraception, and hence for her ability to have sex without risk of pregnancy (actually reduced risk, since no contraception is 100% effective as far as I know) make her a slut or a prostitute? After all what is going on is third party payment for sexual activity. Why am I not free to harangue the clever economist's female loved one - and other women in similar circumstances - for not bearing the entire cost of their sexual activity, actual and/or potential? Am I not justified in muttering Slut! Whore! as I pass the clever economist's female loved on the street or at the market?

Of course no one is making me buy medical insurance. Indeed, the woman in question is not an extortionist precisely because she is not coercing me in any way whatsoever. Nor is she coercing the insurance carrier our employer contracts with. Nor is she coercing our employer (even though, as a member of the status of women in the company committee, she is an articulate, even ardent advocate for insuring that reproductive health care and contraception are covered in the standard insurance package with no special riders.) Nevertheless, she is quite clearly getting me - even if not intentionally - and our male co-workers to subsidize the coverage available to she and other female employees. Finding that difficult to accept, I might simply opt out of insurance. I might simply think that, should I need medical attention, I will go to the emergency room and get it without paying. The hospital is legally prohibited from turning me away. (The prospect of turning the uninsured away from medical providers is the sort of thing that elicited jeers and cheers at one of the Republican debates earlier this season.) And I figure I am old enough to be dead before the hospital would ever get it together to go to court to collect the debt, let alone collect a settlement. My decision would have an analogous effect to what I've sketched above. Someone else would be paying (via higher insurance premiums, higher hospital charges, or whatever) for my care or, if I was lucky enough to never need any, for my risk taking.

There are a lot of details left out here. (Note, for example, the ridiculous assumption that contraception is solely a women's concern. Men, after all, need not think about such things at all. Note the ridiculous assumption that shifting the time of pregnancy and childbirth might, in many instances, be an intelligent or ethical thing to do.) After all, this is a fable. And fables have morals. Here the moral is that calling the clever economist's female loved one a slut or a prostitute in this case seems pretty much wholly out of place. That is because insurance pools risk in order to compensate for the inability to make a simpler sort of market for medical care (or other quite risky eventualities).

The moral could be stated more bluntly: in the circumstances sketched in this fable my calling the clever economist's female loved one a slut or a prostitute would make me a jerk, perhaps even an asshole. Hence my view of Rush Limbaugh. I'll withhold judgment on those who are "jealous" of his reasoning and eloquence. Likewise I will withhold judgement on those who agree with the jealous 100%.
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* In The Democrat and Chronicle report, Landsburg is quoted as complaining that Fluke never seriously engaged in argument about her position. He seems to have forgotten that the Republicans on the House Oversight Committee prevented her from testifying at recent Congressional hearings, and hence being confronted with opposing views.

P.S.: Here is Landsburg's lament about being misunderstood and misrepresented.

On Steve Lansburg

I hardly am a fan of Rush Limbaugh. His recent bad behavior simply confirms my assessment. Turns out that calling Sandra Fluke a slut and prostitute are just the tip of the iceberg; he actually had a multi-day rant about she and her imagined proclivities. And then he offered a half-hearted apology. (I actually don't give a hoot about such apologies. They are empty ritual.) He is losing advertisers in droves. Good. The Republican elite has, predictably enough, basically stood by mumbling. To his credit Obama stepped up.

Now, one of my colleagues at the University of Rochester has decided he really needed to offer his insights into the debacle. Steve Landsburg, economist and peddler of opinion, has defended Limbaugh's language as "analytically astute." You can find a report here at the WSJ. Landsburg's own posts are here and here. The President of the University has made clear his views on Landsburg's screeds. According to the WSJ report, Landsburg insists:

“[While] Ms. Fluke herself deserves the same basic respect we owe to any human being, her position — which is what’s at issue here — deserves none whatsoever. It deserves only to be ridiculed, mocked and jeered."

Actually, it is Landsburg who deserves the derision. His primary mistake? Like many economists he mistakes the real world for the fictions captured in economic models. The agents who populate such models are sociopaths. Literally. They lack moral sense. They lack emotion. They are hyper-rational. All that may be - actually it is - useful in making economic models, which are meant to explore the conception of narrow instrumental rationality. But in actual life, such characteristics reflect a genuine tone-deafness. It is just the sort of tone-deafness that we see in sociopaths. Landsburg seems unable to differentiate between living in his textbook and living in the world of actual people. (Do you think of your children as externalities? Do you talk about sex in terms of getting 'the incentives right'? Do you tell that to your kids or your actual or potential partners?) In his various opinion-makings, Landsburg seems to present such thinking as a virtue. That is more than reason enough to take a pass on his various writings.

If Landsburg is as concerned with consistency as he suggests, perhaps he might entertain the notion that one way of treating people with respect entails leaving them to make choices for themselves. Contraception is just a tool for allowing such choice. And calling people bad names when they make choices you don't like. Well, that is not respecting them.

It is easy to anticipate Landsburg's retort. He will point to his gambit of trying to differentiate Sandra Fluke and 'her position.' That is pretty weak tea even for an economist. It amounts to saying "I have nothing against you, it is simply that I don't like what you think or say." Given that speech is action, one is culpable or laudable for what one says just as for what one does. We may not want to toss you in jail for speaking (although there are some who evince no qualms on that score), but I assure you that there are views that make me consider someone an ass or a jerk. How do you reach that sort of conclusion and 'not have anything against' the person you attach those labels to? Good luck with that Steve. In the actual world, if not in some economic model of the world, pretending that for 'analytical' purposes you can treat - and speak publicly of - some actual person as a whore or a slut without demeaning them is an intellectual and ethical failing.

Hey Rush Limbaugh, Meet Some of Your Bigoted Fellow Republicans!

So, Rush Limbaugh, notoriously perceptive observer of American racial relations, has pronounced that racism is largely imaginary in the U.S.; and he infers that African-Americans and Latinos have simply been misled politically. Why? Because the Democrats, after all these years, have not been able to eliminate racism. The moral of the story is that racial minorities in the U.S. really ought to support Republicans. That would solve the problem of racism (which, recall, really is all in the imagination in the first place). Get it?

Yes, I think that the African-American and Latino population in the U.S. should embrace the Republicans. They might be especially interested in chatting with South Carolina Republican Rusty DePass who recently likened a Gorilla that escaped from a zoo to Michelle Obama's ancestors. Or, maybe they could have coffee and discuss politics with Sherri Goforth (who works for Republican State Senator from Tennessee Dianne Black) who emailed this "Historical Keepsake Photo" - depicting all 44 U.S. Presidents - to a list of her fellow Republicans.

Sure, these are small-minded right-wingers acting badly. And there surely are more substantial things to worry about in politics these days than their petty bigotry. But Sherri and Rusty are probably quite close to the median Republican voter on racial matters too. The implications for Limbaugh's diagnosis are pretty clear. It hardly takes much imagination to figure that one out.

Profiles in Courage: Vladimir Ilyich Limbaugh Intimidating Hapless Republicans

Rush Limbaugh is a Leninist. Rather than work for the recovery of the country from the military fiascoes and economic disaster that the unlamented 'W' and his minions bequeathed us, he is wishing for even more disaster.* Hence he repeatedly proclaims that he hopes Obama fails.

Like his namesake V.I., Limbaugh wants crisis - and damn the regular folks who will suffer the consequences. (Many of the regular folks are Limbaugh worshipers who don't get that he's rooting for a political economic state of affairs in which they will get screwed.) But on Limbaugh's Leninist view crisis will set the stage for a revolution - Republican, that is. This would be laughable except for the fact that the Republicans are spinelessly allowing Rush to whip up extremist fervor among the far right wing of the party. Limbaugh has them thoroughly intimidated.

Last month, we witnessed Georgia Congressman Phil Gingrey's shameless apology to V.I. for having spoken the truth. Gingrey had simply stated what is obvious, namely that Limbaugh plays no constructive role in governing and so can easily sit back and spew venomous inanities. (Actually Gingrey didn't go that far, but he ought to have.) But Limbaugh went on the air whining and blustering. So, the good Congressman demonstrated amazing courage as he called in to lick Limbaugh's boots.

This week we have the newly elected Chair of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, following Gingrey's lead. Steele rightly dismissed Limbaugh as an "entertainer" and rightly characterised his tirades as "incendiary" and "ugly." Not much to disagree with there. But, again, V.I. took to the airwaves, whined to his faithful followers, and Steele quickly issued an apology.

Regular readers will know that I don't think very highly of our right wing revolutionary. As I said here not long ago:

"I find Limbaugh loathsome. He is a bigoted, hypocritical drug addict. Politically he is a buffoon, a right-wing windbag who is out of touch with even Republican voters . . ."

I see no reason to alter that assessment. Nor can Limbaugh expect any apology.

The problem for the Republicans, of course, is that Rush is sabotaging their ability to attract any portion of the vaguely sane segment of the American electorate. And the craven behavior of Gingrey and Steele (among others in the official and unofficial party hierarchy) just makes matters worse for the party. From my perspective that is all to the good. If the Republicans let this sort of thing go on, they deserve what they get. It will simply confirm my suspicions that they really are quite dim.
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* Yes, I am sure some Limbaugh disciple will complain that Rush has proposed this bipartisan stimulus alternative in the WSJ. The problem is that just cutting taxes and getting out of the way is a recipe for disaster. There is no evidence that cutting taxes does much to spur productive investment. And, to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that it will do anything to impact the financial markets (which is speculation not productive investment). So, Rush's "plan," like most of what he spews is worthless.

Big, Bad, Scary Rush

Rush Limbaugh. Photograph © Nigel Parry for The New York Times.

I've received a couple of emails asking what I thought of this profile The New York Times Magazine ran last week on Rush Limbaugh. I find Limbaugh loathsome. He is a bigoted, hypocritical drug addict. Politically he is a buffoon, a right-wing windbag who is out of touch with even Republican voters (witness his love of Mitt Romney). The fact that The Times wasted column inches on him is an insult to readers.

Over at Alternet* you can find this assessment of the profile and the right wing "reporter" the folks at The Times picked to write it. Here is one of the good bits:

"I understand that Beltway media players routinely play nice with Limbaugh and his fringe brand of conservatism. Spooked by his liberal-bias charges, the mainstream press corps has for years treated Limbaugh with undeserved respect, worked overtime to soften his radical edges, and presented him as simply a partisan pundit. ...

The lengthy Times profile took that trend to a whole new level, because unlike most previous half-hearted attempts to outline, in very general ways, what Limbaugh says and explain why he's controversial, the Times clearly never had any intention of shedding even the dimmest light on the content of Limbaugh's program. Instead, it hired a conservative writer to wistfully dismiss Limbaugh's critics in two or three sentences. And in exchange for playing dumb, the Times was granted unusual access to the talk-show host.

That kind of obvious quid pro quo is the type of thing that's practiced on a daily basis at celebrity magazines, where editors angle for access in exchange for puff pieces. It's not journalism, and it ought to be beneath The Times."

The problem with what passes for journalism in the U.S. is that there is no concept of what might count as honest, critical writing. There certainly seems to be few venues for such work. Either something is a "hit piece" or it is fawning (the latter posture of supplication struck in order to secure 'access'). Well, how about having someone write a vaguely honest piece on Limbaugh and then offer to sit down with him and discuss the thing. If he refuses, too bad; run it with that caveat stated. It is not as though Rush would not have ample chance to whine and complain about how oppressed he is.
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* If you think Alternet is too lefty to offer a reasonable assessment, try this one at The Columbia Journalism Review.