Grassley Calls for Contrition, Not Suicide
I thought Senator Chuck Grassley’s initial impulse to suggest that AIG-folk ought to kill themselves, samurai-style, was a bit over the top. But there was a ray of truth in what he was saying. And I think he found the way, saying that there’s a need for some personal responsibility and contrition among the masters of the universe who destroyed the global economy:
In the case of the Japanese, you know, they do one of two things. They either go commit suicide or they take a deep bow and say apologies and then sometimes resign. But they take full responsibility. And we’re not hearing that.
And obviously, I don’t want anyone to kill themselves because I don’t believe in that sort of thing. But I do believe that when you have done bad for your company, for your stockholders, and eventually for the taxpayer…you ought to say I’m sorry.
Right. We’ve somehow managed to construct something of a post-shame society, in which elites have convinced themselves that the rational agent model of human behavior is not just a useful modeling tool, but an ethical guidebook. There’s something to be said for the idea of a sense of honor and personal responsibility. You’d like to see a story in a newspaper somewhere about some Wall Streeter whose lost a lot of money over the past 18 months and is saying “you know what, I lost a lot of money over the past 18 months but I’m still a lot better off than most people are, and unlike a lot of those people I never really did much of anything to earn this wealth — that’s why I’m giving what I have left to the local soup kitchen.” Do I expect everyone to act like that? No, that’s not realistic. But I think that in a healthy society, you see some consideration of issues of honor and duty and moral responsibility and certainly Americans of more humble means don’t strike me as being nearly as taken with the “greed is good” personal ethic.
That said, turning attention back to Grassley, the man’s a United States Senator. He’s in a position to not only offer commentary on passing events, but to change the structure of American public policy. He could, for example, show his outrage at greedy elites by supporting a budget that undoes the pro-rich-people Bush tax code to finance tax cuts for working people and expansion of health care coverage. Thus far, though, he seems content to stick with his pro-rich policy agenda.
84 Responses to “Grassley Calls for Contrition, Not Suicide”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
March 17th, 2009 at 11:52 am
“Right. We’ve somehow managed to construct something of a post-shame society”
Right, decades of saying there’s no shame in having kids out of wedlock, or having kids you can’t afford to support, or relying on the government to pay your bills, have gotten us to this post-shame society. AIG execs are just a much more expensive version of welfare queens, but it’s the same principle at work: the lack of personal responsibility.
It’s the same principle Obama is perpetuating by promising most Americans all kinds of goodies without them having to pay for them.
March 17th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Yeah, right. That slippery slope leads to saying I’m sorry for the 40 years of Republicanism. They’ll have no part.
March 17th, 2009 at 11:53 am
… that is small change compared to the trillion-plus in taxpayer funds that are moving around.
We left the billions behind a while ago.
March 17th, 2009 at 11:56 am
#2:
Look, poor people! They’re the problem!
God, conservative are so predictable.
March 17th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Shame? Rod Dreher, call your office.
This seems an awful lot like a conservative talking point.
Maybe not. But I do think it’s interesting that most people seem eager to use shame in some circumstances, but not in others.
March 17th, 2009 at 11:58 am
The Onion has a hilarious clip wherein a Senator calls a news conference to apologize in advance for an act of adultry he’s already running a few minutes late from committing. He goes on and on about how shameful, thoughtless and deplorable his conduct will be, effusively begging the forgiveness of his wife, children and constituents. You see celebrities, sports figures and others ramble on about how they shouldn’t have driven drunk, hit their spouse, smoked dope or otherwise let down everyone that knows them. Yet these are all transgressions known to be immoral, illegal and just plain wrong BEFORE they were done. And the public, teammates and loved ones are supposed to forgive and forget. As are investors, voters and employees. Talk of acting properly in the first place is rare, almost as if the right to be criminal is present as long as contrition, remorse and demonstrated shame are in evidence later. How about doing what we all know is legal and proper to begin with? Or, just hold a news conference explaining you’re running a few minutes late to a meeting about plundering the Treasury (for which you’re very sorry). That’ll apparently suffice.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
This is a job for Cheney’s assassination squad!
March 17th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Really, really weird to hear Matt talking about the need for shame. Hasn’t the great liberal social project of the last forty years been a repudiation of honor and duty and moral responsibility, with predictable results for those less financially and educationally insulated from the harmful effects of no-fault divorce, welfare incentives for single parenthood, and abortion on demand (fetuses being among the most vulnerable members of our society)?
March 17th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
The reason why that will never happen is that the difference between being in finance and any other job that requires you to be smart is a monomaniacal avarice. The only good thing about the job is that you make way too much money. You don’t do anything useful. You contribute nothing. If you were the kind of smart person who would donate money to charity you would be in another line of work. Maybe a doctor or a scientist or a professor. People go into finance because they are a little smart and very, very, very, greedy.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Democrats especially are incapable of anger. They’ve been translating political and moral problems into technical administrative problems for so long that they don’t know how to do anything else. And they’ve been catering to the right wing and distancing themselves from their horrible base for so long that the base is pretty well demoralized and the Democratic establishment is incapable of talking to them.
Note that Grassley is a Republican. When he starts blaming, he’ll blame the wrong people. Fox is already blaming: Barney Frank, Bill Clinton, immigrants, minority home buyers, and Obama. But the Democrats are cool, technocratic, and above the battle (a losing strategy for most of the past five decades now.
Since the Civil War, the Democratic Party has done more harm than good except when under heavy pressure from third parties and outside groups. Jonah Goldberg is right: the Democrats ended the Reconstruction and then protected segregation for about seven decades. The Democratic Establishment didn’t even like FDR and gradually suffocated whatever populism there was in the New Deal.
Most of us know that Republicans , finance looters, demented Christians, and most of the media are our enemies. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party Establishment is one of them too. The two parties have a stranglehold on American politics the way they didn’t during the populist-progressive era, and we have to fight against that. Politics is institutionally stacked in their favor, and we have to learn to fight against that.
(At the URL: The best American election ever, where the Communist was the moderate Democrat in the primary, and beat the Republican in the general.)
March 17th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
What Chuck Grassley articulated, and what is feeding the rage so many Americans are feeling, is actually quite simple, though terrifying.
A large portion of our economy was and is in the hands of sociopaths.
I do not mean that as an exaggeration, or hyperbole, but as literal truth.
A sociopath is not necessarily someone who commits murder, rape, or other violent crimes. A sociopath is someone who is consumed entirely with his own self-interest and sees others only as objects – only as means to his ends.
This is why Ayn Rand’s works were so destructive. She was a sociopath, and her “philosophy” is constructed and designed to give moral validation to sociopathic behavior – and to encourage the worst latent sociopathic tendencies in all humans.
The DSM-IV calls sociopathy “antisocial personality disorder,” and lists the following criteria. Three or more of the following are required for a diagnosis:
1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
2. Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;
4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.
How many of Wall Street’s “Masters of the Universe” meet these criteria? Perhaps we should consider the possibility of civil commitment. The law permits incarceration in mental institutions for people whose illnesses make them a danger to themselves or others. And the Wall Street boys have already proven themselves a serious danger to others many times over.
Our society has a creeping rot, and has become accepting over the years of behavior that is a symptom of serious mental illness. We need to start getting tough on sociopaths and locking them up before they can threaten all of us.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Democrats especially are incapable of anger. They’ve been translating political and moral problems into technical administrative problems for so long that they don’t know how to do anything else.
Clearly you’ve been out of the country for the past eight years.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
URL: http://trollblog.wordpress.com/
March 17th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
But don’t you see that is exactly the trap, Matt? Showing a little contrition is a cheap way out.
Note to DTM for the millionth time: It’s not an either/or situation, no matter how many times you present it as one.
Note to MTD re: “there’s no shame in having kids out of wedlock, or having kids you can’t afford to support:” I’m sure that’s why you’re fully behind women’s right to an abortion on demand. Also, just out of curiosity, how does the total amount of money paid out in AFDC-type payments over the years compare to the ~$750B handed out last fall’s TARP?
March 17th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Grassley should throw himself off of a bridge for all the money he’s given to the farm lobby.
As for some of you on the forum. Just what the hell is rich? This class warfare is just completely unproductive.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
post-shame society[:] elites have convinced themselves that the rational agent model of human behavior is not just a useful modeling tool, but an ethical guidebook.
Yes, elites of all kinds, not limited to people on the right or in finance or business, or even people with a lot of money. The fact that it isn’t just the usual suspects who adopted the Rational Agent model as an ethical model is what the Reagan Revolution means. I’ve always thought – having lived before and after it – that the RR was a cultural revolution more than anything, and MY has, in that sentence, gotten to its essence. If you do something more or less odious, and it makes money, you are not to blame because you were just acting ‘rationally’. It’s a cultural sickness, and is actually just the reactionary version of ‘If it feels good, do it’: ‘If it makes someone money, it’s good’.
There’s something to be said for the idea of a sense of honor and personal responsibility.
I don’t want to pick on MY here – blogging is a fast and furious business – but that is a rather odd way to put it. A sense of honor and personal responsibility is about as essential a thing for a civilization as there is. Entropy otherwise, no?
March 17th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Just another backtracking Repub. Give them all the Rommel option.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
No, that’s the caricature of the great liberal social project of the last forty years. Instead, in reality we’ve had the great conservative social project of the last forty years- which consists of constant calls for “limited government” and “financial restraint” and “personal responsibility” for everyone…except conservatives.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
14: None of the people you’re thinking of are Democratic Party leaders. The angry internet Democrats are party nobodies — so is Senator Feingold — and all along they’ve been successfully stonewalled by Rahm, the Clintons, Obama, Feinstein, and as many other big Democratic players as you care to name the whole time. Pelosi occasionally shows some small signs of life, and several other House leaders, but it’s usually a day late and a dollar short.
Half the new Congressmen Kos, Jane Hamsher et al promoted have doublecrossed them. This is not a criticism of Kos and Hamsher at all — they’re dealing with it.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Don’t feed the troll liberalrob; but I’d be happy to agree there’s plenty of blame to go around as far as political parties are concerned. I just think it’s odd for social liberals like Matt to start talking about personal responsibility when he embraces a libertarian sexual ethic which refuses to take responsibility for its actions, most reprehensibly with regard to fetuses, but in other areas as well.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
There’s something to be said for the idea of a sense of honor and personal responsibility.
There’s something to be said, in the absence of such things, for choosing one senior bank executive and hanging him from a lamp-post. There’s also something to be said for breaking, entering and living in bankers’ summer houses.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Raging angry populist hero CNBC loudmouth Rick Santelli pronounces AIG bonuses “no big deal”.
After all, it’s not like AIG executives are doing something truly wrong and offensive, like struggling on their now underwater mortgage payment or something similar like murder.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
“As for some of you on the forum. Just what the hell is rich? This class warfare is just completely unproductive.”
I would venture that any of these assholes getting tens of millions of dollars in “retention bonuses” qualify as rich by any standard. And, given the fact these sociopaths wrecked our economy while becoming filthily, disgustingly rich, they’re lucky the “warfare” is only rhetorical.
What the fuck is your point, anyway?
March 17th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Just to continue with Sen. Grassley’s oblique Japan-bashing metaphor (um, Senator, I think seppuku went out of fashion shortly after WWII), Ogden Nash wrote a short poem about Imperial Japan’s “apologies” for various provocative acts pre-WWII:
I’m not in a big hurry to get an “apology” from the Wall Street Wizards who have brought on this debacle. I’m more interested in getting out of it, and I can’t believe we’re going to trust these same people to lead us in that effort.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
I’ve said it a million times: Republican populism is fake, Democratic elitism is real. And fake populism can beat real elitism.
47% of the actual voters voted for McCain. It’s not like we damaged the Republicans long-term. If Obama isn’t successful quickly, and it may be impossible for him to do that, they’re going to try to tear him apart.
The Second Great Depression we’re facing is a backloaded gift from Bush and Rove to the next President. Obama’s going to have to move heaven and earth just to clean up part of Bush’s mess, and if he doesn’t succeed in attaching the blame to the Republicans, they’ll attach it to him. And I don’t think that he’s up to the job: time will tell.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
In other words, this is how Matt’s position strikes me:
Sex: You have consensual sex. It results in a pregnancy. You have an absolute, unqualified right to an abortion, and the concept of personal responsibility, honor, duty etc. to the child you created are simply irrelevant.(Note: while is a surprise in any individual case, it’s basically just a matter of time and averages – the average woman will have 1.8 contraceptive failures if they consistently use contraception into their 40’s).
Finance: You run a hedge fund. You make risky investments that turn out badly. Well, then it’s all about personal responsibility, and society should inculcate a deep sense of shame for your actions.
Well, why is the latter different from the former?
March 17th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Just what the hell is rich? This class warfare is just completely unproductive.
Why do rich people always retreat to ‘class warfare’ when the peasants they’ve been pissing on for years suddenly point a flashlight in their face? The whining is very unbecoming. Just go hire a security guard with your big pile of cash.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Point 1: I’d like to see Matt present some evidence that wealthy investor elites aren’t behaving this way, volunteering at soup kitchens. I bet it would be hard evidence to find.
Point 2: Is Grassley did that, wouldn’t it have the opposite effect of inculcating a pre-post-shame society? Punishment? Which makes people recoil in defensive anger? If Matt is serious about have a shame society, there are things he could do about that. Instead, he suggests legislation.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Forget apologies and shaming. Why aren’t we prosecuting these people? Or at least threatening to.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I entirely endorse conservatives making arguments that our last decade of Wall Street wilding is equivalent to the wimminfolk having consensual sex. I hope it becomes a common Republican talking point so that they dwindle to maybe 10% of single women’s votes.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Financial markets are amoral and are supposed to exist only to provide liquidity for people involved in providing substantive goods and services, i.e. real economic activity. It’s OK for people working in the financial markets to be amoral but it’s not OK to spin one cube of sugar into a room full of cotton candy, then use the room full of cotton candy as collateral to secure ten more cubes of sugar, and then collect a fee for the transaction, then repeat the process. Investment banking evolved into nothing more to a complicated version of trading one shiny nickel for a dirty ol’ dime. That’s a cheap lesson in kindergarten but it’s called fraud in banking.
Where are the prosecutions for fraud?
March 17th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
There’s nothing at all difficult about being liberal about abortion and sex and strict about self-dealing and fraud in high-level finance. There’s no contradiction involved in accepting gay sex and extramarital sex while not tolerating multi-billion dollar Ponzi schemes. It’s the most reasonable position, and conservative bots who try to make it seem self-contradictory are just muddying the waters, as they habitually do, by confusing apples and oranges and appealing to ignorant gut feelings about loose women. You hear this all the time, and there are some fine bot examples on this very thread.
But it’s true that too many Democrats are smooth operators who (for a variety of careerist, pseudo-scientific, ideological, technocratic and liberationist reasons) have completely disabled their anger reaction and their capacity for blaming anyone for anything.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Go check out how McMegan uses this tidbit to try to divert people from anger at AIG.
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/03/grassley_to_financial_executiv.php
March 17th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
“moral responsibility, … no-fault divorce, welfare incentives for single parenthood, and abortion on demand”
There is nothing immoral about divorce, single parenthood, or abortion, so no, your complaint makes no sense whatsoever. I think you don’t know the meaning of the word “morality” (clue: it has nothing to do with private, consensual sexual behavior). And fetuses are not people.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Hasn’t the great liberal social project of the last forty years been a repudiation of honor and duty and moral responsibility
No, it hasn’t. That’s been the de facto project of the Reagan Revolution, which, among other things, posited that there is no such thing a society, there is no such thing as a Commons or a common good, and there is no such thing as moral responsibility to anyone but yourself or your immediate family (as long as you go to church). Proselytizing doesn’t count as moral responsibility to others, sorry.
Moral responsibility (and honor) were fine for the little people, but the Big Boys were exempt, weren’t expected to take that crap seriously. When Reagan was caught having authorized selling weapons to an enemy (Iran) to wage a secret war elsewhere, did he really accept responsibility? He said he did, but he also said that while his head told me he had done this, his ‘heart’ told him he didn’t. That’s responsibility, my friends! When Gingrich led the way to impeach a president in connection with an extramarital affair – while he was having exactly the same kind of oral affair with a staffer – did he own up to anything? I never heard it (he was just being a rational actor impeaching Clinton, don’t cha know). There are just scads of other examples, right up to the denouement we’re in the middle of now.
I am very worried about moral rot in this country. You can’t regulate morals politically, but you can redefine basic attitudes, which is what the conservative movement has done: greed is good; paying taxes is always bad (corollary: paying taxes on work is acceptable, but not so on capital); the government is always bad; a human is not a social animal, but rather strictly an individual; anything you do in business is OK so long as it makes money and you don’t get caught; public deficits and debt don’t matter; lying about things of public import doesn’t matter unless you get caught; etc. etc.
Who do you think has been in political and social power for the ‘last 40 years’? Have you actually been in the US, JLR?
March 17th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
“We didn’t want to go wild making trillions of dollars of fictional assets out of the derivative game, but the women folk wore all these tight dresses and acted in a provocative manner, so we went crazy. I blame the women for acting so loose.”
March 17th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
“This class warfare is just completely unproductive.”
Getting angry at rich people who screw over the rest of us is class warfare? Please. The French and Russian revolutions were class warfare; here, I don’t see any Wall Street CEOs whose heads have been forcibly removed. Now, if Grassley had gone beyond the mention of suicide to call for angry mobs to take care of the execs who did not go themselves, that could be class warfare.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
The pregnant woman’s choices affect only herself; the hedge fund manager’s choices can affect millions. That’s just in a purely economic sense.
In the “moral” sense, as an individual human being, the woman has an absolute “inalienable” right to control what she does with her own body. The state should have no say in her decisions in that regard. The hedge fund manager is merely an employee of his investors, and has no absolute right to do anything he wants with the money invested. The state has an obligation to protect the investors from hedge fund managers who make fraudulent promises.
Also, it’s very cynical of you to assume that a woman who elects to have an abortion is evading some kind of responsibility. Is it really a woman’s “responsibility” to bear all conceptions to term? My counterargument is that by electing to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, the woman is showing the highest level of responsible thinking. She is saving society tens of thousands of dollars (at least) in care for that unwanted child. She is electing not raise a child in an environment of poverty and privation, of abuse and neglect, maybe even of crackhouses and street gangs. The conservative fantasy of happy adoptions of all unwanted children is just that, a fantasy. Even in the most loving of homes, adopted children will always wonder if they are somewhat less loved, less desirable, less valuable as a human being because their birth parents did not want them.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Saying Grassley should support a tax increase on the rich is stupid. All of “the rich” are not at fault in this bank-lead calamity. Any serious take on restoring a sense of accountability to this country ought to actually deal with the actions of actual people instead of the collective guilt that Matt apparently sees.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Ed Smithe is a moron (not at all unusual here). Mainstream politicos really hate “simplistic thinking”, but a lot of them think that you can end a discussion with a word or phrase: “class warfare”, “Luddite”, “conspracy theorist”, “pandering to the base”, and also, of course, “simplistic”.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I’ve been in the U.S., but I think only a naif or an imbecile could argue with a straight face that one political party or another was responsible for moral rot. Notice, I was arguing against social liberalism, not Democrats (they aren’t always the same); many of the small government at all cost conservatives are just as repellent to me as they are to you. I think both a naive trust in government and an unwillingness to recognize that government can be used in important ways domestically to help the worst situated are ridiculous. I think support for more entitlement spending is often the moral position to take.
At the same time, I think the individualism you’re decrying in conservatives who oppose taxes, is the same individualism that leads people to say they won’t accept responsibility for the child I’ve created, either in the womb or when they make that child’s life miserable through a string of divorces.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Taxation is not punishment. There are many reasons for a higher maximum tax rate, and there would be even without the present crisis. Two different questions.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
“The pregnant woman’s choices affect only herself”
Have you ever seen a sonogram? Your statement, to me, is exactly the type of moral irresponsibilty I was decrying. The fetus is so much of a threat to individual autonomy, that it’s humanity must be denied.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Re Ed Smithe at 17: “As for some of you on the forum. Just what the hell is rich? This class warfare is just completely unproductive.”
———-
What do you all say to the idea that we hunt Ed Smithe down and cut off his nuts. Do I hear a second?
March 17th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Clearly the best response would be to tax loose women.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
She is saving society tens of thousands of dollars (at least) in care for that unwanted child.
Ah, so I see, if we can save some money by killing the unwanted child, we’d be more efficient. If you’d like, perhaps someone could be appointed to determine when you have exhausted your optimum financial utility.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
As I understand we have some empty cells in gitmo… lets pick up all these AIG thieves, declare them enemy combatants, waterboard them until they confess to be Al-Qaeda sleepers (they will, and soon), seize their assets, and then use as many “Enhanced Techniques” as possible to get them to unravel their mess. Finnaly put then in the queue for trial behind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Well, why is the latter [large scale fraud] different from the former [abortion]?
Do you honestly not see the difference? If the man in the former, tells the woman ‘See ya! It’s your problem’, that is irresponsibility. You evidently think that having safe and legal abortion available as an option – not a fait accompli – is murder. I don’t. But either way, the idea that that is morally the same as crashing the world economy for greed’s sake, which will cause literally billions of people – including children who are already born – to live through various levels of pain, poverty, heartbreak, disease, etc….that is just weird, dude.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Any serious take on restoring a sense of accountability to this country ought to actually deal with the actions of actual people….
Certainly. And other things too. (And I hear the “fundamentally unserious” bot soundbite being warmed up).
March 17th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I am kinda surprised by Senator Grassley’s comments — if he is such a tribune of the little people, why did he do nothing to stop his Republican President and past Republican Congresses from letting this goatfuck happen in the first place?
Given that $Trillions in taxpayer dollars are flowing out the back door to big Republican donors, why is Grassley yelling over just $165 Million to AIG managers?
Did those exectives not write any campaign checks to Grassley — or were the checks not big enough?
March 17th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
“Notice, I was arguing against social liberalism”
Social liberalism has not been responsible for any moral rot, though – it has been responsible for moral goods. Social liberalism has worked to fight against the social and legal oppression of women, trying to guarantee equal treatment under the law. It lead to the recognition of women as autonomous over their own bodies and ended the deadly practice of back-alley abortions, saving untold number of lives. In other words, you do not know the meaning of the word ‘morality’, since you are in fact calling social liberals immoral for pushing what is a moral good, and seem to be calling for the return of the evil policy of outlawing abortion.
“they won’t accept responsibility for the child I’ve created, either in the womb”
Learn English. There is no such thing as a child in the womb. And yeah, ending an unwanted pregnancy that a person knows they don’t want is taking responsibility.
“or when they make that child’s life miserable through a string of divorces”
More miserable than a child’s life would be with parents who stay married even though they can’s stand each other?
March 17th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
And why are the Democrats so RELUCTANT to point fingers at the hypocrisy of Grassley and his fellow Republicans?
Usually when people avoid a discussion, it’s because they have something also to hide.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
But either way, the idea that that is morally the same as crashing the world economy for greed’s sake, which will cause literally billions of people – including children who are already born – to live through various levels of pain, poverty, heartbreak, disease, etc….that is just weird, dude.
Perhaps I was unclear. Matt’s post argues for the inculcation of shame and moral responsibility. I attempted to point out that in another context he appears to deny the need for shame or moral responsibility; indeed, he would characterize such people as scolds. The question is: should society inculcate the moral responsibility and shame? I think the answer is yes, but that social liberals, particularly on abortion, where they’ll go to elaborate lengths to deny basic facts about the fetus, tend to adopt a firmly individualistic stance here. Any suggestion of a moral obligation or duty to the fetus is met with an assertion a contrary ‘right,’ and the denial of the need for duty or shame. I think this type of individualism is exactly the same as the type of individualism that say results in self-dealing and fraud in financial transactions (keep in mind, most of the people involved lost a lot – the didn’t know ex ante that everything would go down the way it did). They thought, sure, this is questionable, but I have a right to act in my own self-interest.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Sorry for the ridiculously high level of typos in the previous comment. Also, to answer your question, yeah, I think killing someone is worse than making a shady financial deal (given that the people in question had no idea how bad the effect on the market would be).
March 17th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
JLR, the relevant point you had has been made and responded to. Now you’re trying to turn this into another goddamn abortion thread. There are actually interesting things being discussed here. Quit muddying the waters.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Fair enough, John. I’ll give it a rest; I’d like to be a Democrat, but I can’t because of abortion. But you’re right that I’ve gone on (and on) enough about it for now.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
You mean other than the fact that an abortion affects one person, two at most, while a poorly run hedge fund affects hundreds, if not thousands of people.
If you think that one woman having an abortion is the moral equivalent of thousands of people losing their life’s savings because of someone’s bad judgment, I think you need to take your moral compass in for an adjustment. You sound like the bishops in Brazil who decided that in a situation where a 9-year-old child was repeatedly raped by her stepfather, the real crime was when that child had an abortion. Because there’s nothing more moral than forcing a 9-year-old child to continue a pregnancy that could kill her.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Love is….never having to say you’re sorry.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
The moral rot in the country, as we all know, was the racism, the lyncher attitude, that liberalism heroically countered. It was the sexism, the intrusion on a woman’s right to her own body and the multiple double standards that ran through the way women have been treated in the private sphere, that liberalism also heroically countered.
Unfortunately, liberalism has not heroically countered the servile culture – a culture that automatically bows to the wealthy, and puts in place a double standard that operates one way when it comes to UAW contracts and another way when it comes to AIG contracts. Obama, who I generally like, made a big mistake signing up to the establishment viewpoint by hiring Summers and Geithner. Those two are costing him, politically, every day. The only people who defend the AIG robbery are Obama’s enemies. Enemies who have been trying to stir up outrage at the stimulus, and are now left to explain why the rich should get rich on their truly historic malfeasance and incompetence. The reason is a little class tautology: the rich should be richer cause they are rich.
I’m rather shocked that the 400 people who created and disseminated the CDS’s still work for AIG in the first place. They should have been replaced long ago, forensic accountants should be studying their records, and their wealth should be going into hiring lawyers. That financial center should be folded up, and that is all that should be happening to it. AIG should never, ever again be allowed to become a major otc deriviatives market maker. And the OTC system itself, of course, shouldn’t exist – derivatives should not be traded peer to peer, but through a transparent, institutionally regulated locus, along the lines of the NYSE.
Hang the AIG bonuses heavily around its supporters. Senator Kyl, Santelli (CNBC just keeps giving). Debase the image of the wealthy, cut their prestige, attack them at every opportunity. Now’s the time to do it!
March 17th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Have a look at Kurosawa’s “The Bad Sleep Well”. It’s the little guys who commit suicide. The big criminals sleep well.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
This thread is awesome.
I particularly like the conservatives who throw up ridiculous strawmen of liberal policies (like equating employment insurance with bonuses for catastrophic financial failure), and then ask why in reality the liberals aren’t embracing the caricature of liberal policies as presented by the Conservative Clown Parade.
Keep it coming…
I can’t believe no one has blamed this all on Bill Clinton getting a BJ, but there’s still time left!
March 17th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
This is all Bill Clinton’s fault, because he got a BJ.
March 17th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Kurosawa and Dostoevsky really capture the feudalism we are feeling. Thanks doug, that just got added to the que. I love Kurosawa.
March 17th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
The NYT has an article today about how Goldman Sachs is loaning money to employees who are in deep trouble because of investments in Goldman in-house funds that are underwater.
Maybe these AIG guys are in similar straits.
March 17th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
@38 Jonnybutter
Damned brilliant post. Very well done.
March 17th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I think JLR actually brings up a hugely salient point, though maybe not on purpose. Abortion debaters disagree over a fundamental axiom: that life begins at conception. Discussions of abortion that don’t address this fundamental difference are just hand-waving and shouting to no end.
Sorry abortion opponents, but the idea that an embryo or fetus is not necessarily a person is ensconced in law.
There’s a similar split between people who subscribe to the version of capitalism described by jonnybutter (#18), with the axiom “things that make money are by definition good”, and those who do not. There’s a similar risk of arguing past each other to no useful end if we don’t keep cognizant of this. For example, some people are disgusted by shorting, particularly in the current crisis, and some are mystified by that position; arguments about this are unproductive unless they address the axiomatic difference between the two camps.
Unfortunately for industrial morality advocates, the idea that making money is its own morality is ensconced in law as well. What’s an LLC, after all?
March 17th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
@70
The pro-abortion argument may be able to proceed granting the personhood of the fetus (and then pointing out that we don’t have obligations to preserve every person and then arguing that the fetus falls into that category)–cf JJ. Thomson’s famous paper.
March 17th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Hector, is that you?
March 17th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Keep in mind that it’s hard to really develop a strong sense of duty to a company that would lead you to be ashamed when you fuck up if you are jumping jobs every year or two.
I suspect that’s the real reason behind all these high executive compensation and the lack of shame – these guys know they’re going to be out in a year anyways, so they set up contracts to extract as much as possible. They have a fairly brief “shadow of the future”, so to speak.
As for the “abortion” issue, I’ve always been struck by the cowardice of some on the pro-choice side. Why not make an argument, for example, that a fetus doesn’t become human until it actually has the true physical rudiments of distinctively human mental features to some degree? It’s our minds that truly separate us in physical terms (aside from DNA) from the animals, and I don’t see a lot of pro-lifers arguing against the killing of animals.
March 17th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Re: 47% of the actual voters voted for McCain.
Last I checked that’s a definite minority. Obama’s margin of victory is, by historocal standards, quite respectable.
Re: The Second Great Depression we’re facing is a backloaded gift from Bush and Rove to the next President.
We are not facing a Second Great Deoression. Good grief, can the dranma queenery! We are dealing with a severe recession. If you must use the “D” word, coin a new phrase: The Little Depression.
Re: And I don’t think that he’s up to the job: time will tell.
He’s off to a good start, having passed some significant legislation over furious minority party objection. Could even Ronald Reagan
March 17th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Good grief, can the drama queenery! We are dealing with a severe recession.
And fuck you too. We have no idea how bad the *ecession will end up being. There seems to be a consensus that it’s the worst since 1937, maybe 1929, and it hasn’t bottomed out yet.
Obama’s big failure has been his pandering to finance. In itself that might be enough to doom him. All issues are not equal.
The significant legislation Obama passed was strictly emergency survival and recovery stuff, with no net gain over 2000 AD. That’s the beauty of the backloaded disaster; it cripples Obama.
Let me explicate “47%” for you. That number means, in sum, that a net 3% of the voters switched from the R to the D column between 2000 and 2008 — after the most disastrous presidency since Buchanan’s. The Republicans just need to switch 3-4% of them back to return to power. Their strategy is to sabotage him and blame him for the consequences of Bush’s two terms. That could easily work. We can’t be too confident.
March 17th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
“Right. We’ve somehow managed to construct something of a post-shame society, in which elites have convinced themselves that the rational agent model of human behavior is not just a useful modeling tool, but an ethical guidebook. There’s something to be said for the idea of a sense of honor and personal responsibility.”
Part of the problem is all the opinion columns, feature articles and blog posts about how tiresome public apologies are. Of course some of it has to do with the fact that people don’t do it right–it’s a transparent game, there’s not enough shame. But part of it also has to do with people poo-pooing the whole ritual of public shame and apology.
Of course being lawyered up has a lot to do with it as well. If you apologize you admit guilt. A doctor can leave his pocket watch in your chest cavity and his lawyer will tell him to never, ever, apologize.
But your first commenter captured the essence of it. The people looking on have to feel the shame as well. At some point in time in Japan and other places, the shame was worse than death. Now it’s considered the “easy way out”, even when 200 million people hate you. Now there’s no end to punishment and revenge because we feel shamelessness all around us.
March 17th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
I’ve been advocating for several months now that instead of withholding bonuses or capping salaries, bailouts should be contingent on appearing on live TV and a)publicly admitting to making mistakes, b)apologizing for those mistakes, and c)promising to try to make amends.
The idea is not to shame or humiliate, however. It’s to prevent the same thing from happening all over again as soon as the heat is off.
Quite frankly, labor markets are broken, and have been for some time. By refusing to acknowledge their mistakes, these chieftains are signaling that they have every intention of opposing any efforts to fixing them. By forcing them to acknowledge that they were not worth were what they were being paid, they would also be admitting that ‘the market’ isn’t setting the price for labor. This would go a long way towards addressing this issue, to have it openly confronted. Let the rich folk whine about class warfare after these guys admit – publicly I say – that they aren’t worth one thin dime. But that they have every intention of sucking up every dollar and every cent they can lay their mitts on anyway.
The ‘free market’? Feh.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Re: The pro-abortion argument may be able to proceed granting the personhood of the fetus (and then pointing out that we don’t have obligations to preserve every person and then arguing that the fetus falls into that category)–cf JJ. Thomson’s famous paper.
SN,
In a just and civilized society, every copy of Judith Jarvis Thomsen’s paper would be confiscated and burned by the public hangman. I see little difference between Ms. Thomsen and other such paragons of humanity like the Comte de Gobineau or Julius Streicher. They have this in common, that they both endorsed the legalized butchery of one part of humanity by another.
As for the AIG executives, I have similar loathing and contempt for unfettered capitalism as I do for abortion. I see both of them as fundamentally having their origin in the rebellion against the natural order and the exaltation of the individual self.
Brett,
Like most pro-choicers, you commit the error of thinking that a thing is defined by its physical or functional properties. On the contrary. Is a man in a deep sleep not a human being? He isn’t thinking either. A developing fetus is human in its essence, although not in its accidents.
March 18th, 2009 at 1:37 am
@ #7: this is the logical consequence of basing social mores on Catholicism – all your sins are forgiven if you but just confess/repent, so what the h$ll, might as well get mine while the gettin’s good.
March 18th, 2009 at 7:46 am
remember when Matt apologized for his support for Operation Clusterfuck: Iraq? It made everything better
March 18th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I’m sorry I had to get off this train for a while. Just in case JLR is still around….
Matt’s post argues for the inculcation of shame and moral responsibility.
He says that there is a complete lack of shame and the taking of moral responsibility in the public sphere – and by ‘public sphere’, I prefer him to mean the people in government and business who are the true material leaders of the country at any given time (not athletes, singers, etc.). It’s about taking responsibility for what you do which affects lots of other people – millions of other people, usually. As Jefferson said (paraphrased): if my neighbor believes in 10 gods or no god, it neither picks my pocket nor skins my knee. If Bill Clinton has a cheap little affair, it really doesn’t mess up my life, or anybody else’s (except his family). If Ronald Reagan sells arms to the people who were just holding our hostages to fund a brutal war in which many thousands of people will die…well, that does affect other people.
I have a friend who I really do like a lot, who says, like you, that she’d like to vote for Dems, but can’t because of abortion. This really gets to the heart of the public/private split we’re wrestling with here. I asked my fried what I’ve asked many other so called ‘pro life’ people: what should the government do with people who have or perform abortions? Jail or fines for the women or doctors? The answer (so far) is always, ‘No, no, NO!’. ‘Then what should the government’s role be?’, I ask. I usually get a blank stare. ‘Then why do you vote on this issue if you don’t know what the government is supposed to do?’ It’s a case of dancing about architecture! It’s like hiring an accountant because he’s a Bears fan (understandable if you too are a Bears fan, but that doesn’t make him a good accountant). Enough, please. The modern GOP has become the monster it is by co-opting the worst of 60s liberal shibboleths, and this is yet another example: Identity Politics writ large.
The politicians who have done more to support individuals qua individuals have been the progressives – Republicans and Democrats, depending on the era – not the conservatives, and certainly not the current crop of GOP/movement conservatives.
@38 Jonnybutter
Very well done.
thank you SN
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:31 am
Buy Viagra…
http://url.edna.edu.au/4bbN Buy Viagra…
March 24th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Buy Propecia…
http://www.folkd.com/user/buypropeciaonline Buy Propecia…
March 27th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Buy Propecia…
http://url.edna.edu.au/eVAJ Buy Propecia…
April 9th, 2009 at 4:28 am
This is very up-to-date information. I think I’ll share it on Delicious.
April 12th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Hello very nice site! sitemap
April 15th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
This is quite a hot info. I think I’ll share it on Digg.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Good Day. All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.
I am from Latvia and also now teach English, tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Com is a leading online cheap flights booking and hotel reservation agency.”
Thanks for the help
, Marland.