Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

JB — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:19:20 -0000

Guns are a core issue for many people and many libertarians.

So many mass murders of civilians by the state have been preceded by gun control and gun confiscation.

It's my line in the sand. I become politically active the day the US government starts confiscating guns; I start shooting politicians and government officials.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

David Jinkins — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:09:26 -0000

How did you vote, Will?

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Nathan Scott — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:36:59 -0000

My guess is that a the drug trade would offer more to the economy than 1% growth.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Nathan Scott — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:33:13 -0000

As I said, you know little about Canadian Health care.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Zvi Mowshowitz — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:20:39 -0000

You're thinking of my brother, Avi. I'm the math and economics guy. It also occurs to me that in addition to seen vs. unseen we might be able to alter the results by reversing the endowment effect.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Matt Simpson — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 05:23:10 -0000

I have two words for anyone who voted against 1% growth: scope insensitivity.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Aaron — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:42:37 -0000

No profit = no innovation

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Nathan Scott — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:52:22 -0000

Yea, because you can so quickly quote all those produced by the US yesterday.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

longbongsilver — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:53:51 -0000

Aaron: "Arguments for limited foreign policy (Iraq) engagements (George Will, Buckley, etc.), abolition of the drug war, etc. already exist in the broad conservative tent."

...and the influence those views have when it comes to actual policy would be _____?

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Paul O'Pinion — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:31:07 -0000

I think Libertarians are mainly folks who look for freedom on many fronts, both social and economic. It is difficult to find any candidate in either party who satisfies one in more than 50% of one's hot buttons. Making choices on who lines up on more issues is the reality of a two party system.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

TA — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:06:49 -0000

This is too much fun. So.....
Conservatives (who favor abortion and drug controls and oppose Can. HC and gun control) oppose Can HC more than abortion rights and hold gun rights more important than extra growth.

Libertarians (who oppose all controls and Can. HC) hold gun rights more important than abortion rights and hate the drug war more than Can. HC.

Liberals hold abortion rights more important than Can HC or extra growth.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Aaron — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:54:42 -0000

I patiently await the next medical innovation fostered by the Canadian health care system.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Aaron — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:50:59 -0000

Will, in reading your earlier posts, I noticed that you are conflating conservatives with Republicans and George W. Bush. Conservatives are equally disgusted with the spending profligacy that occurred in the past 8 years, and do not consider George W. Bush or, sadly, many Republicans, as being conservative. I have to say that I find the argument that liberals have more in common with libertarians than do conservatives flatly absurd. It is the type of relativism which, while it may be the sort of thing to curry favor at cocktail parties amongst the chattering classes, I find cowardly. Time to come out of the closet and recognize that the best way to affect change is to campaign and champion for candidates within the Republican Party who can best reflect your values. Arguments for limited foreign policy (Iraq) engagements (George Will, Buckley, etc.), abolition of the drug war, etc. already exist in the broad conservative tent. That is because they can easily be argued within the framework of a constitutionally-based limited government which values individual liberty (In other words, the government meant to be established by our Founding Fathers). To me, there is a clear, stark difference between the underlying principles of liberals and conservatives. It is the French Revolution vs. the U.S. Revolution.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Nathan Scott — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:28:24 -0000

Aaron, you know very little about Canadian health care.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

JasonL — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:13:12 -0000

I think you're right about #2 - I've known a few (few!) pro-life libertarians, and you can see how you get there from a very specific view of rights. The numbers are so small on this poll, though, that it could be as easily explained by plain old error. (On the poll-takers' part.)

I'm not so sure about #1 - my general impression is that younger conservatives - though perhaps not the hip ones who like Cato more than Heritage - are at least as pro-life as older ones. A 2004 Gallup poll showed pro-life sentiment far stronger among 18-24-year old evangelicals (not identical to conservatives but strongly overlapping, perhaps) being far more pro-life than all other age groups in the evangelical subset, with 24-30-year-olds coming in second. This doesn't do much more than suggest, though, and it was 5 years ago. (And remember, we're talking about a completely unrepresentative sample here.) Anybody have any real data?

This was great fun nonetheless. You should do more polls!

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Aaron — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:01:41 -0000

Ceding control of the health care system (around 15% or so of GDP in US I believe) to me is clearly such a bigger infringement of individual liberty than is say, the drug war, that I cannot take any self-proclaimed libertarian who votes otherwise seriously. I cannot see this bloc as anything other than single-issue voters who may easily have been cast as extras in the filming of Half Baked. You would literally be conferring powers on matters of life and death to a centralized bureaucracy.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Paul O'Pinion — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:47:26 -0000

Mark,
I read National Review Online regularly. I also find much that I agree and disagree with there. The attraction is that there is much (in theory) on the self-proclaimed conservative side to like. There is, however, much that I do not agree with such as the very rigid position on abortion. I am not a fan, but I do not feel it will ever be (Roe vs. Wade) overturned, I don't feel the government should rule on it and much energy is wasted on it, either for show or in vain.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Mark — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:08:43 -0000

Not to be a smartass, but I had a National Review subscription for about a year, and couldn't figure out why I loved 50% of the content and hated the other 50%. I think there are also a lot of confused conservatives running around who are actually libertarians.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Adina — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:30:52 -0000

Zvi, did you do a senior thesis on Nigerian music or something? I remember meeting a Mowshowitz at Columbia shabbat dinners, but I'm not sure if it was you.

I agree with you that "cutting economic growth" has a seen vs. unseen bias.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Zvi Mowshowitz — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 08:08:08 -0000

I wonder what would happen if we changed "1% YoY economic growth" to something more concrete that people could touch of similar magnitude. To me, if this many people are passing up the growth it means that either they think that a ban on handguns or abortion is so awful that cutting the economy in half well before 2100 is less important, or more likely they don't understand what economic growth entails (or how much of it 1% YoY represents). The other possibility is that people have much shorter time horizons than I thought they did.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Jack — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:26:47 -0000

One thing about the Econ growth+ gun control question. Obviously I can't speak for all liberals but my vote wasn't for banning hand guns- I'm actually opposed to a lot of gun control I just don't care about it enough to sacrifice the economic growth. But thats just me.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

TheFieryScribe — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:09:01 -0000

You're quite welcome, Wil. It was fun playing with that data. The simplified charts make it clear to me that I'm more of a liberal than a libertarian.

Can't wait for the next one.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Jack — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:53:03 -0000

What ever made you think liberals don't have an emotional stake in the abortion issue, we tend to take sexist policies that force women into back-alleys pretty seriously.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Robert S. Porter — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:17:07 -0000

If I ever win the lottery I'll pay for a Gallup poll for you so you can say it's scientific.

Re: Magic Buttons: The Breakdown

Jeff Yager — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:09:09 -0000

I think these numbers are completely intuitive now. Except for #2, it's a lesser of two evils game for most libertarians, and they generally split, and then the liberal/conservative crowds cancel each other out too.

I believe I voted for the % growth in both of those questions because when people have money, there's always a way, and they're pretty small wedge issues in the grand scheme of everyday life. Had you said something like Freedom of Speech, Invade an Arab Nation, or Privacy, etc... different ball game.