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July 30, 2007
Progressives
Megan writes:
[The progressives'] good goverment reforms (combined with the legal culture changes in the 1970s), are the reason that it takes about seventy years to get anything done at any level of government. My father likes to point out that had George Bush come into office saying "Shoring up the levees in New Orleans is my #1 priority" and proceeded to act on that, by the time Katrina hit the Army Corps of Engineers would probably have just about finished the Environmental Impact Analysis on the preliminary bids.
If there had been no lawsuits, that is.
There are always lawsuits.
Does anyone actually believe this? Does Megan? Or does it just sound sort of cutting and droll?
And incidentally, her post, which is another in the genre of "the historical progressives had pretty wide streaks of racism and eugenetics running through their movement" strikes me as very, very weak. Conservatives -- and not just "historical" conservatives, but still living conservatives, like Bill Buckley -- fought to preserve segregation as the law of the land. Fought viciously for it. And then spent 45 years determinedly taking advantage of the passage of the Civil Rights Act to gain lots of votes among quiet racists.
But tell me again how the progressives had "streaks of racism." And tell me again how much conservatives suffer from not only those linguistic associations with their forebears, but their more contemporary attempts to eke a political advantage out of their party's legacy of racism.
July 30, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
re- disaster relief
And talk about picking a piss poor example. Disaster relief worked under Clinton, but not Bush- what does that tell the objective minded
Posted by: akaison | Jul 30, 2007 5:21:29 PM
Cut 'n' drool, indeed.
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Libertarians don't understand the whole appeal of "it's better for everyone if government is run well," since they want government run badly enough that the oppressed masses will rise up against their Social Security overlords.
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Finally, the right is barking up the wrong tree in thinking they can demonize "progressive" in the same way they demonized "liberal".
And they're barking up the wrong tree for a reason much of the left doesn't seem cognizant about: liberalism has always been an unpopular self-identification. Even going back to the 60's, it's never gotten much more than 20% of the electorate, with both moderate and conservative both always getting much higher percentages.
"Liberal" was unpopular before the right's campaign began, and they didn't move the count very much. But "progressive" is very popular, and operating from the liberal example, they likely won't be able to move that very much either.
Posted by: Petey | Jul 30, 2007 5:24:20 PM
For some time now I've been trying to figure out why you bother reading that blog. Today's post is not helping me understand.
Posted by: TRM | Jul 30, 2007 5:24:27 PM
CalTrans had the MacArthur Maze meltdown repaired in a month and did a neat job documenting the whole thing.
Posted by: Megan | Jul 30, 2007 5:35:46 PM
. Conservatives -- and not just "historical" conservatives, but still living conservatives, like Bill Buckley -- fought to preserve segregation as the law of the land. Fought viciously for it.
Conservatives expressly sought to capture the South from the Dems on the basis of racial animosity, and, having successfully done so, have turned their party over--willingly or not--to that same Southern Conservative base. See 2000-2006. And, if you're hoping to smear by affiliation, it probably helps not to have supported the Bush Administration for six-odd years. At least with 70% of the American public. With the other 30%, you're gold.
Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Jul 30, 2007 5:46:48 PM
She probably believes it in a casual, don't-spend-any-time-at-all-thinking-about-it, kind of way.
I'm an environmental lawyer. It should take 9-18 months to do an Environmental Impact Statement (not an EIA, there's no such thing) on the proposed project (not the bids, that's not how it's done) for a major project.
No, there isn't always lawsuits - I've wanted to bring lawsuits before and hadn't had the opportunity.
Finally, the controlling environmental law, NEPA, contains an emergency exemption allowing an agency to do work first and then do the environmental documentation afterwards. Probably inapplicable to a major reworking of the levees, but if they wanted to do some quick preparations in the advance of a forecasted bad hurricane season, it might well apply.
She's got nothing right.
Posted by: Brian Schmidt | Jul 30, 2007 5:52:29 PM
I get it... republicans where (are still) racist... but what about her point? Is there something wrong or incorrect about it?
megan,
but they're killing it with that 101/880 interchage.... been working on that one since I was a kid, and I'm not young.
Posted by: hmmmm | Jul 30, 2007 5:57:47 PM
What she really doesn't understand is that it takes a long time to get things done in the private sector, too. I'm always amazed at how libertarians and other conservatives romanticize the supposed flexibility of the private sector. They clearly have never worked for a corporation (large or small -- and no, working for the Economist doesn't count).
In any private business, trying to get a new initiative, etc off the ground takes months.
Posted by: think twice | Jul 30, 2007 5:58:28 PM
As to the supposed streak of racism among progressives, I would say this: what polical movement from the 19th century is not tainted by racism, or sexism or anti-semitism? There were even numerous racists among the abolitionists (remember, one argument against slavery among some abolitionists is that slavery caused too much interaction of whites with blacks with detrimental results, including miscegnation).
Posted by: think twice | Jul 30, 2007 6:05:43 PM
Wow, how the hell did we ever win WWII when we were being ruled by some actually pretty left wing folks? (Oh and now that I think about it, the actual Progressives themselves did a pretty fair job with World War I. Enough to prompt the Germans to surrender in 1918.) I'm surprised we managed to build a single plane or launch a ship or two, not to say the most extraordinary armada the world has ever seen.
The great part of being Megan is you don't actually have to know anything to spout off definitively. She went to all the right schools and such. But Jesus, how can anyone take these people seriously? Moreover, her commenters are as pig ignorant as she is - conflating Progressives with Populists, which is just so wrong for so many reasons.
Megan adds to the incoherence with her pretense to deeply valuing process -- no Roe or Griswold for our girl -- which is exactly what the Progressives were rather big on.
Posted by: Klein's Tiny Left Nut | Jul 30, 2007 6:21:33 PM
Don't forget that at the root of the destruction of the Justice Department is a desire to prevent black people from voting-- firing USAs who decline to pursue bogus "voter fraud" cases for which there's no evidence, and promoting Bradley Schlozmans in their place.
Posted by: Elvis Elvisberg | Jul 30, 2007 6:25:35 PM
There was a progressive movement around the turn of the 20th century. Remember Teddy. Did accomplish a number of good things too. But they were composed mostly WASP upper middle class types with roots in New England. And of course they were Republicans. I think Meagan must be referring to these people many of whom gravitated towards eugenics in the following decades. Eugenics was being used as a club to keep out all those unwashed immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. The real left was found among these latter groups.
The term 'progressive' began to take on more populous and socially conscientious connotations much later in the 20th century.
Posted by: syvanen | Jul 30, 2007 6:51:11 PM
Klein,
Talk to the Brits.... we were late for both wars.
Posted by: hmmmm | Jul 30, 2007 6:58:16 PM
ah...hmmmm...
yeah, we were "late for both wars" because the isolationist conservatives were against our getting into them. The politics of the first world war made getting into it not much of a lock for either progressives or conservatives, of course, since it was a massively stupid war and well understood to be a rich man's war. But the second world war? It was the pro-german conservatives and isolationists who kept us out of it.
aimai
Posted by: aimai | Jul 30, 2007 7:23:50 PM
She is really a moron. The plans were ready, it was the Bush administration that refused to fund the work.
She seems to think she's a liberal, though, and I think that is a pretty good explanation of why people don't like liberals.
Posted by: serial catowner | Jul 30, 2007 7:25:39 PM
My father likes to point out that had George Bush come into office saying "Shoring up the levees in New Orleans is my #1 priority" and proceeded to act...
Well, my father likes to point out that had Lincoln not been assassinated, the US would've never have gotten involved in World War I. Goes on at great length about it, the old man does. But--take note, Jane Galt--I don't go presenting his post-prandial speculations as profound and relevant thinking.
Posted by: James Gary | Jul 30, 2007 7:31:56 PM
aimai,
didn't the liberals/progressives run both branches of the gov't at the time? i'm trying to think of how much sway the two groups you mention had and I'm guessing: not a lot.
re: WWI.. yes it was a dumb war. Still, ask a brit and we were late to both.
Posted by: hmmmm | Jul 30, 2007 8:07:22 PM
Wow, how the hell did we ever win WWII when we were being ruled by some actually pretty left wing folks?
If only we'd outsourced World War 2 to the private sector. They would have completed it in half the time and under budget. By the way, did young Megan have any links or figures to support her assertion that government actually is slower than the private sector? Just wondering.
Posted by: d0n camillo | Jul 30, 2007 8:38:14 PM
hmmmm,
I think the merits for entering into each war were radically different. However, I think in both instances the US entered as fast as it could have from a political perspective. If you want to check out a rather good treatment of this issue with respect to WWII, I recommend Ian Kershaw's latest.
My real point was that the mobilization of the U.S. economy by our left wing, planning obsessed government in WWII (where unions had equal input with management for the most part) was extraordinary and occurred in part before the actual military intervention occurred.
don camillo,
LOL. Well of course the gliberterians are now taking the view that Roosevelt fucked up the Great Depression too -- if he had just left it up to the private sector it would all have sorted out much sooner.
These people are exceedingly silly in addition to being historicallt illiterate.
Posted by: Klein's Tiny Left Nut | Jul 30, 2007 10:33:19 PM
Klein,
Thanks for the pointer on the book. The original comment was mostly in jest. I could take it a step further and note that it wasn't like we beat Microsoft at war. We beat another, largely screwed up, command and control gov't! :)
Posted by: hmmmm | Jul 30, 2007 11:10:30 PM
Posted by: Klein's Tiny Left Nut | Jul 30, 2007 10:33:19 PM
I think the merits for entering into each war were radically different. However, I think in both instances the US entered as fast as it could have from a political perspective. If you want to check out a rather good treatment of this issue with respect to WWII, I recommend Ian Kershaw's latest.
...
And note that the US tends to have a better record with wars that it enters into after a tremendous amount of initial reluctance than with war that it enters into with tremendous enthusiasm.
Posted by: BruceMcF | Jul 30, 2007 11:12:00 PM
I can't believe what assholes you guys are. I mean, "her daddy" told her these things.
You guys are a bunch of fucktards.
Posted by: anon | Jul 30, 2007 11:26:34 PM
Wow, many, many misunderstandings here.
Serial Catowner, you are seven kinds of wrong. There were no "plans"; there were plans to talk about getting plans.
Environmental lawyer: yes, the EIA only takes 9-18 months. But you're on crack if you think you could do one without a lawsuit on the levees in New Orleans, which is, AFAIK, one of the top two or three things the ACOE does. Plus, the EIA is only one part of it. There's the RFP, the public hearings, reconciling the appropriations process in committee . . . it takes a very, very long time to build stuff the government wants built. Yes, the private sector takes a long time to build stuff too. But mostly because they're waiting for the government to hand out permits.
More broadly, that's a critique from the left, not the right. There's no particular reason, even for libertarians, that the government must be slow (inefficient is a different question). My Dad's a Democrat, the former head of a trade association. He's not complaining that the government is inefficient, per se; he's complaining that the US government is much more inefficient than it needs to be for procedural reasons linked to our obsession with review. There's simply no question that government projects take much, much more time than they used to because we're so obsessed with stamping out every last vestige of possible corruption and abuse that we've essentially stripped discretion from everyone. That was the progressive vision of a technocratic, rules-driven civil service, but the result has been, not paradise, but a bureaucracy that trips over itself whenever anything at all changes. This is a critique from the left about process, led by Philip Howard ("The Death of Common Sense", etc), not a critique from the right about government scope or efficiency in general. And I'm definitely not the first to make it.
Ezra, my point is not that current progressives are racist or eugenicists, or whatever; my point was that they're *not*, so why take on the name of the group that spearheaded the social hygeine movement? It wasn't an attempt to tar current progressives with the same brush; quite the reverse. Conservatives have the excuse that they've always *been* conservatives. Progressives, on the other hand, are pretty much rescuing the name from the ashbin of history, so it's worth asking the question: is this the right name?
As for whether people believe that there are serious process problems that slow down things like infrastructure works, go ahead and ask anyone who works on infrastructure. Yes, you can get things repaired fastish if they break in a calamitous way. Which is to say, they could have quickly rebuilt the levees to withstand a Cat 5 hurricane--right after they were destroyed by a Cat 5 hurricane. Getting stuff done in advance is very slow and painstaking, and the bigger the project, the longer it takes. Is anyone on this thread with experience of government projects *seriously* going to try to argue otherwise? I'm not just spouting off here; I've spent a good portion of my life at the fringes of the government construction industry. Let's compare the repair of a meltdown to a new project, like the Second Avenue Subway. The Second Avenue Subway was first proposed in . . . 1929. But a lot's happened since then, and there was a depression, so no points off for that. Anyway, it was proposed for the last, and most successful time (we devoutly hope) in the early part of the new millenium. In 2005, the matter finally went to voters, and was passed. Just a short two years later, groundbreaking happened, except then it was delayed by contract arguments. Anyway, the first leg will allegedly be completed by 2014, if there are no overruns, lawsuits, etc. By 2020, it should be complete.
The construction of the entire initial IRT system took four years. And yes, it was in dense urban areas and required, as now, opening up the streets and/or very expensive tunneling.
If you are a member of the part of the bureaucracy in charge of some review process, this seems right, natural, and vital. If you are a user of the services not being provided because we have to review everything, it's a little more frustrating--and I'd agree with those who say that the review, and the emphasis on rule-driven civil service, have gotten to much weight in the balance between public accountability and government effectiveness. But read Philip Howard's book. It's a very sensible read, and I promise, not a libertarian idea anywhere.
Posted by: Megan McArdle | Jul 30, 2007 11:51:40 PM
Isn't it possible William F. Buckley and all the rest, who you say attempted to keep institutional racism the status quo, were being honest when they said they were fighting in favor of states rights and not in favor of racism?
There cannot be a valid exchange of ideas if one side accuses the other of lying about their motives.
Posted by: Stan | Jul 31, 2007 12:31:49 AM
There is an apparent contradiction between the claim that progressives are excessively review oriented as opposed to liberals who get things done fast, and Noah Millman's claims about liberals weighing ends and means while progressives see only ends.
Posted by: Consumatopia | Jul 31, 2007 1:06:05 AM
