Disqus - Latest Comments for David Stearns

Re: Obama’s Patriotism

David Stearns — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:21:29 -0000

I agree that the jingoism of the Limbaugh variety is rightly regarded as dangerous and toxic to rational thought. But it saddens me to some extent that that mind-frame has completely co-opted the term 'patriotism.' I'm currently living in China--a country more infected with unquestioning, government-led group think than anywhere else I can think of-- and the experience has definitely made me more proud to be an American than I can ever recall being. Of course, I don't always have to feel proud of my government (I rarely am) to be proud of my country, but that is to a large extent what I love so much about the place. Is there any room left in the concept of 'patriotism' for the deep appreciation of the freedoms and independence of thought that the states are at least supposed to embody, and that they do embody in their finer moments?

Re: Patriotism and Monogamy

David Stearns — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:45:39 -0000

Will: I think Robin Hanson is pointing to a pretty key weakness in your response. Unless you can answer his question, I don't think your objection that patriotism is particularistic holds up. You can love your girlfriend because she's beautiful, funny and smart without loving all the equally beautiful, funny and smart women out there. And you can love your girlfriend for those qualities knowing that if she stopped having them you might not love her anymore. Likewise with love of (not fetishistic worship of) country: I can love America insofar as it has characteristics I find worthy of love, even while being sickened by its participation in, e.g., torture. I'm quite happy that the Danes and Canadians are more or less free also, but I'm not Danish or Canadian so I don't love Denmark and Canada to the same extent. It's just like being glad that someone else has wonderful parents: great for them, but for whatever contingent reasons, I just love mine more. Of course, this argument is far from new:
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~cifonemc/index_files/im...

Re: You Shouldn’t Let Poets Lie to You

David Stearns — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:18:53 -0000

She's downright platonic in her hatred of poets. I'll stick with Nietzsche--doesn't he have something about how lies are necessary for life?

Re: Complementarity and Contingency

David Stearns — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:25:36 -0000

Where does Hume talk about contingency? I think contingency is one of the most fascinating questions about human lives. I'm the sixth of six kids, and my mom had something like 4 miscarriages before I came along (she had me at 43 because for a long time she was convinced she didn't want anything to do with children). What if my dad had decided five kids was enough, and my mom had gotten sick of getting pregnant?

Re: Inauguration Liveblog

David Stearns — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:29:50 -0000

Couple things: First, the worst part of the speech was when he called for all lines between factions to dissolve. Aren't we supposed to live in a pluralist, cosmopolitan country where there are different groups of people, all holding hands and living together happily?

Second: Why aren't more libertarians creaming their pants over the fact that we've now got a president who seems to be pretty clearly repudiating torture and holding individuals indefinitely w/o any need for evidence or process, just so long as he deems them evil enough? Sure, redistribution bad! Big stimulus bad! But isn't this the kind of crap we *always* get from politicians, and given what most people would actually demand of politicians pretty unavoidable? And isn't being tortured and held w/o the writ of habeas corpus a *way way way bigger* threat to liberty than scary marginal tax rates and the stupidity of the SS system? Yes, it sucks that the president can interpret the constitution any way he wants, but GWB happened to interpret to mean that he can do whatever he wants, while Barack interprets it to mean that he can't. That should be great news to libertarians, no?

And yet Will, unless I'm missing something, the only thing you can bring yourself to praise about the man is how much it means about us that we have progressed to the point where we can vote in a black man as president.

In short: all politicians suck balls, but some definitely more than others. Seems to me like BHO actually has some things to actually recommend him. (none of this is to say that I'm not totally on board with your instinctual rejection of a lot of the collectivist boilerplate and hysteria surrounding the man.)

Re: Bill Easterly on Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save

David Stearns — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:35:48 -0000

Will, I'm wondering how you respond to the worry that Collier brings up in The Bottom Billion re: liberalizing immigration/emigration: namely that emigration is likely to drain away the talented, educated people from poor countries, leaving the home countries without the concentration of educated folks that Collier views as necessary to effectuate significant turnarounds in governance and policy.

I'm not saying that people who improve their skills shouldn't be free to move to wherever they can maximize their opportunities, and I believe it would be immoral to prevent them (unless their education was subsidized, in which case I think it is reasonable to extract promises that they stay). And I don't want to minimize the real gains that accrue to those who do make it out. But while I think there are compelling reasons to encourage, or at least not prevent emigration, i'm not sure that it doesn't make many people actually worse off who don't have the skills to get out because it leaves many with fewer spillover benefits of being around educated, talented folks. Thoughts?

Re: No Saviors

David Stearns — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:34:03 -0000

Okay, I take the point of the post and agree with it. But it seems like you might be missing the intent of the cover (which I haven't actually seen yet). One of the things that makes the NYer so good is their penchant for irony. Think of the cover depicting Obama in the White House giving the terrorist fist jab to Michelle. The point--which, at least for public purposes, seemed to be lost on Obama himself--wasn't to wonder whether Obama might actually be an America-hating islamic radical, it was to poke fun at the people who actually thought he was. The point was to expose the lunacy of allegations that he was. Might the cover you're writing about also be tongue in cheek, pointing to how ridiculous these godlike comparisons are? In which case, it's not so much the cover that's terrifying, but the sentiment it's mirroring.

Re: Stamp Act

David Stearns — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:03:42 -0000

is this just a general crack at correlation/causation inferences, or is Russ saying that he doesn't really buy the whole climate change hypothesis? If the latter, I really wonder why not at least stay agnostic about something you're not an expert in?

Re: Huh?

David Stearns — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:37:26 -0000

Those are the two candidates for most offensive thing about that argument: the stupidity of the argument and the elevation of small business? Now it's my turn to say, 'Huh?' Seems to me the most offensive thing is the use of stupid arguments in an attempt to explicitly exclude class of people from the blessings of marriage. At least that's what jumped out at me...