In a post on "the lies and misrepresentation spread yesterday by left wing journalists Yasha Levine of Nation and Kate Zernike of the hyper-partisan New York Times", Greg writes that "she’s [Kate Zernike] a demonstrable ignoramus — and a highly bigoted one at that" and "She’s incompetent, yet intentionally deceptive and dishonest to boot." It didn't get truly classy until the comments "Levine & his co-author are trash writers for a hard left yellow journalism Internet rag with roots in most pathological anti-social elements in Russia." And what was that gem in response to? A commenter simply asked for an example of when they had lied! Then more of this: "intellectually incompetent ravings of these reeking sewer rats from the bowels of Russia and the Internet".
And anyone that knows Greg knows this is not a fluke. I really have to steeply discount people that get flustered by DeLong's occasional "shrillness" but can somehow react politely to this.
The biggest problem (for Greg, not me), is that his post offers no reason whatsoever to question the claim that Charles Koch got Hayek to come work for IHS by trying to convince him that America's safety net was strong enough that Hayek didn't have to worry about leaving Austria, which he liked precisely because of the social safety net that they had that was serving him so well in his time of need. Digging in like this only makes the claim look more credible to me. Could they have fabricated it? Perhaps. But the fact that Greg Ransom - a veritable Hayek encyclopedia - simply sputters nasty non-sequitors at it suggests to me he's got nothing.
I like Hayek. I'm pretty much uninterested in the Koch brothers. I like a social safety net. This isn't an argument that Hayek is a bad person. It's a notation that Hayek and Koch both recognize the value of these sorts of things when they let down their guard and think no one is listening.
[A reminder - I do lightly moderate comments for trolls. If Greg or anyone else comes on here and starts bad mouthing my regulars, I don't care what kind of substance is in the comments too - you will be deleted]
Man, lots of right wing welfare queens.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure this can be true. As I understand it, Greg sleeps in the Hoover Institution library with a drawn sword, like the 'king of the wood' from frazier's 'golden bough', ready to kill any who would profane the Name of Hayek. If he let Mark Ames past him, he'll be ritually slaughtered and a new 'king of the hayek papers' will be crowned.
ReplyDeleteWhat he doesn't know is that what he's actually guarding is a copy of the necronomicon that thomas sowell has spent the last 20 years tattooing on dozens of children.
"It's a notation that Hayek and Koch both recognize the value of these sorts of things when they let down their guard and think no one is listening."
ReplyDeleteOr alternatively, they realize the value of working within a system when they have to as a result of practical considerations - even when they otherwise dislike, find inefficient, etc. that system. Bar keeps and owners in many states would like to make their own bitters; but they can't because it is illegal (one of a many dumb laws which exist in the U.S.). Should they then just close down the bar because of said dumb law? Similarly, the U.S. government at various levels has tried to exercise as best it can a monopoly on education and the federal government has thrown gobs of money at state run schools to no avail - should that mean not having any kids until such ends because it may not be possible to either homeschool or privately school your children?
Whether this story is correct or not is beside the point in other words.
Anonymous Basterd
The problem, here, Daniel, is that you make me say things I didn't come close to saying, i.e. you are making stuff up.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't at all what I said or contended:
"his post offers no reason whatsoever to question the claim that Charles Koch got Hayek to come work for IHS by trying to convince him that America's safety net was strong enough."
What's up with the making stuff up, Daniel?
Some points.
ReplyDelete1. These guys brag about getting kicked out of Russia for publishing trash journalism -- they _advertise_ their site with a cover with the words "Die Already" over a picture of Boris Yeltsin.
If you check out their site. Tell me what _you_ think. I'd be curious to know.
2. Nowhere to I suggest or even hint that the Koch letter isn't what it is -- a letter from Koch to Hayek. The idea that I say or suggest anything else is a fantasy you have made up -- why I don't know.
Again, _you're_ competencies and character are put in question when you manufacture such fictions and misrepresentations.
3. Hayek supports and defends the idea of a social safety net in all of his work, across the course of his life.
His father and son were both government doctors.
Hayek has no in principle objects to a social safety net. Quite the contrary, he insists there is no reason in a prosperous society not to have one.
4. Please stop wasting my time with your inventions that have nothing to do with what I've written.
OK Daniel fair enough: Hey Greg, we don't know each other except through the Intertubes, but from my vantage point you do often sound very irascible. I'm not your dad, but my humble suggestion is that you try to be gentler with your opponents in the future, since I think that will be more productive in getting people to listen to your views on Hayek.
ReplyDeleteGreg -
ReplyDeletere: "The problem, here, Daniel, is that you make me say things I didn't come close to saying, i.e. you are making stuff up."
I quoted you verbatim Greg. Don't accuse me of this.
re: "This isn't at all what I said or contended:
"his post offers no reason whatsoever to question the claim that Charles Koch got Hayek to come work for IHS by trying to convince him that America's safety net was strong enough."
What's up with the making stuff up, Daniel?"
You're right - this is MY contention about your post. Don't accuse me of making stuff up until you provide an actual reason why any of us shouldn't believe the claim.
re: "Nowhere to I suggest or even hint that the Koch letter isn't what it is -- a letter from Koch to Hayek. The idea that I say or suggest anything else is a fantasy you have made up -- why I don't know"
This is not clear at all in your post, which is basically a diatribe against Levine and Zernike. If you think Levine and Zernike are actually accurately reporting the letter you picked a bizarre way of saying that.
None of these points you listed are noted in your blog post. NONE. And you refuse to quote to anyone what you're actually mad about. Don't you dare accuse me of manufacturing anything when I'm just pointing out what an ass you're being to these people.
If you think he supports Social Security and think the story is legit, why don't you just say that?
Yasha Levine & Mark Ames come out of the bowels of Russian yellow journalism, pornography & National Equirer type "journalism":
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eXile
Daniel -- you are directly suggesting that I questions this claim, which I DID NOT:
ReplyDelete"The biggest problem (for Greg, not me), is that his post offers no reason whatsoever to question the claim that Charles Koch got Hayek to come work for IHS by trying to convince him that America's safety net was strong enough that Hayek didn't have to worry about leaving Austria."
Bob, I'm deeply frustrated with two things.
ReplyDelete1. Daniel, who has done this sort of thing before -- making up stuff and saying I said of did things I did not say or do.
I'm sick of it.
2. I'm sick of dishonest leftists with all of their dishonest charges against Hayek that have no basis in reality -- used for one reason and one reason only -- to marginalize and dismiss Hayek's actual work.
And this dishonest, made up stuff often gets thrown directly at my with my name attached.
And, yes, I'm sick of it and I am at war with those who trade in this disreputable strategy -- which has included Paul Krugman, Paul Samuelson, and many others.
Hayek himself was sick of it -- and he directly went after Samuelson for doing it.
Samuelson got himself off the hook by lying to Hayek, which Samuelson later admitted in print.
This is Kate Zernike in the NY Times:
ReplyDelete"This was more than a decade after Hayek (who died in 1992) had written against Social Security in “The Constitution of Liberty,” calling such safety net programs the pathway to social and moral decay."
If you've read Hayek, you know it is bullshit.
Levine and Ames write and say stuff that is far more inflammatory & even further unhinged from reality.
See especially their MSNBC interview on Hayek.
Once again, Daniel, you owe me an apology for writing false things about what I've said or done.
ReplyDeleteStill waiting ...
re: "1. Daniel, who has done this sort of thing before -- making up stuff and saying I said of did things I did not say or do."
ReplyDeletePOINT ME TO A SINGLE THING I HAVE MADE UP AND ATTRIBUTED TO YOU. Put up or shut up, Greg.
re: "Once again, Daniel, you owe me an apology for writing false things about what I've said or done"
Like hell I do. Don't hold your breath.
Your blog is practically dedicated to saying nasty things about other people, and I'm simply pointing out that for one thing you're not even clear about what you're mad about because you waste so much of your time ranting about "reeking sewer rats". If you think the letter is fine, then fine. I never attributed a position to you on the letter. If you think the assessment of the Constitution of Liberty is not fine, then that's fine too. But TELL PEOPLE that's what you disagree with, and try explaining why you disagree with it!
And don't harass people when they (1.) ask you for clarification, or (2.) point out what you yourself admit - that you offer no reason to believe that Koch/IHS story is wrong, (3.) can't read your mind when it comes to what you're really mad about.
Daniel, you falsely suggested I've deleted or blocked your comments from my blog.
ReplyDeleteYou never apologized when I pointed out it never happened.
I invited you to directly email me at my publicly listed email address on my blog if you wanted to post something and were having trouble.
You never bothered.
Good - thanks. I remember checking back on that conversation (I believe it was at Coordination Problem) and didn't see you response so you must have responded after I checked.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to revisit exactly which post it was. I know it was something where you asked me for evidence of something, I provided it, and when I checked back later at your response your query was still there but my response comment was gone. Perhaps it's something with the blog - mine drops comments occasionally too.
I forgot if I accused you of deleting it, or suggested that that was a possibility. I think saying the latter was more likely, but if I said the former I'm sorry about that - I shouldn't have put it that way.
The make up "story" that Levine & Ames are selling is that Hayek was a whore who's stand on any policy position could be bought, and that Hayek was bought and paid to come to America in the 1970s to destroy the America Social Security system. And the fake and false story is that Hayek attacks, "destroys" and opposes the idea of a social safety net in his writings. It's all made up -- made up by National Enquirer Yellow Journalists & pornographers from out of the bowels of Russian journalism.
ReplyDeleteThat's the story. I'm not going to dignify it by putting it on my blog or linking to the sewer rats spreading it on TV and across the Internet.
The strategy of The Big Lie involves getting even those who know the falsity of the Big Lie to help spread it with their denounciations.
ReplyDeleteHommie don't play that.
Daniel, I've got an automatic system to "close comments" after a couple of weeks, to protect the site from spam.
ReplyDeleteYou may have been a victim of that.
Comments are a pain to administer, give all the trolls & spammers.
re: "Daniel -- you are directly suggesting that I questions this claim, which I DID NOT"
ReplyDeleteNo Greg. I NEVER said you question the claim. I said you don't provide evidence against it. You don't. It turns out that's because you believe it. That was hard to figure out for people from your juvenile crap about "sewer rats out of Russia", but I never suggested that you are opposed to the idea that the letter was real.
Levine and Zernike present information that I and many others find very interesting. You go ape-shit on them and don't present a shred of evidence for what you're mad about. All I've said is that I have no reason to change my view on Levine and Zernike's revelation than what I initially thought: that it seems true and that it seems important.
So stop saying I make things up or attribute things to you that you haven't said. I didn't know WHAT your view was on the letter because you didn't tell me it. If having people know what you think on things is so important to you, I suggest you do a better job elaborating on it.
re: "Daniel, I've got an automatic system to "close comments" after a couple of weeks, to protect the site from spam."
ReplyDeleteIt was in the midst of the conversation and I checked back a couple times to see what you thought. I have no choice but to take your word for it, but I know what I saw too. No matter - that's history.
I can only assume the the spam filter grabbed your comment, Daniel.
ReplyDeleteI never saw it and it never hit the site.
These guys are sewer rats -- see the Wikipedia entry on the Russian version of their publication.
And for what it is worth, you defense of your terrible reading skills is in this case and the false claims you put in my mouth are not convincing.
I made it plain in the first sentence what was false -- what was false what their account of Hayek's work on social safety nets.
These guys are spreading lies about Hayek as a paid shill who will say whatever he his paid to say -- and they are directly saying that he was paid to attack and destroy Social Security in the early 1970s, which never happened. Hayek didn't write on the topic and his writing on the social safety net are not at all what these National Enquirer style "reporters" say they are.
Stop spinning and just admit you were completely off base, Danial.
So Greg - just to make sure I'm getting the right chapter... it's the one in Constitution of Liberty where he says that social security is a "new method of pursuing the old aims of socialism" and the "play ball" of "demagogues". Because I want to make sure I don't read the wrong thing.
ReplyDeleteI'll try to post on this this weekend.
In the meantime, maybe you could trouble yourself to stop insulting me and insinuating I'm a liar.
I attributed the words you erroneously put in my mouth to poor reading skill, not deliberate deception ...
ReplyDelete