From a classic Christopher Caldwell essay from September 7, 1998, issue of The Weekly Standard, "1968: A Revolting Generation Looks Back": How fitting that Obama's entire working experience was as a Community Organizer, which is, at its core, organizing "grievance" groups for political action.

"The victory of lifestyle politics over class politics had huge consequences. It broke the lower classes' monopoly on grievances against society; the well-off—or subgroups of them, presenting themselves s 'women,' or 'gays,' or 'students'—could suddenly be 'alienated,' too. And they pushed their claims of oppression under a wholly new type of political discourse. The Myth of Objective Consciousness could not—by definition—be dethroned through rational argument. As Herbert Marcuse said, 'A comfortable, smooth, reasonable, democratic unfreedom prevails in advanced industrial civilization.' Because that civilization was so reasonable, so democratic, to argue on its rational terms was merely to make oneself a dupe of power. So sex and drugs and, most of all, 'feelings' became appropriate weapons in the political arena."

Tisdall Textbook - New Link on Right

You will see on the top right of this blog a link to "Tisdall Textbook"

I copied all of the Chapters from the wiki and all of the critical reading (magna carta etc) into it. This will be more of a static (but incrementally growing) textbook for new members than a dynamic blog. This is still the main site.

What do you guys think should be on the Critical Reading List? This can span fiction to political theory, whatever qualifies to you as Critical.

- James

Marriage and Poverty

We talk about this a lot. Here is a nice slideshow showing the data:
http://www.slideshare.net/theheritagefoundation/marriage-poverty-slideshow

Tonight's Meeting

We need to not let what happened tonight happen again. Ie. we can't talk about pornography for half of the time.

Projection;
- We will try to get voting for the posts on this blog. Easy to discern quality of the posts.
- Currently setting up a parallel blog which will be a textbook, ideally read by everyone before coming to club.
- More soon. I have homework...

Shakespeare quote

Hey guys,

I just picked a quote that I thought was fitting when I setup the blog. Now we're on our feet, anyone have any other suggestions?

- Jimmy

The Democrat's Economic Recovery of 2008-10

Principled debate over why our present economic recovery is so tepid has to include comparison with recovery from the recession of 1981-82 which started the Reagan presidency. You can start with this editorial from the Wall Street Journal 9/21/10:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703989304575504053230524906.html?KEYWORDS=two+recoveries#articleTabs%3Darticle

Funding for a Club WSJ Account

Given the great respect we all have for the WSJ, I think it would be appropriate if we could get an online account which club members could share. Or something. Funded by Student Council.

I'm not sure how login works - ie, can more than one person be logged in at a time - but if this is possible I see no reason why Student Council couldn't hook us up with the funds for such an account.

What do you guys think?

- Jimmy

____

Update: I spoke with E. Gastman and he thinks we should just ask the library for an account first. I'll get on this asap.

Outline for this week's meeting Sept 23, 2010

THE FEDERAL BUDGET AND THE FISCAL GAP

THE SIZE OF THE PROBLEM

- US economy: $14.4 Trillion (2009)
- US gov’t: revenues $2.14 T
budget $3.52 T (2009)


1. debt as a % of GDP: annual: 10% in 2009 (sustainable 2-3%)
aggregate 60% in 2009 (ideal <40%; meltdown >90%, in 2020)
future: 500% including future obligations
- a reasonable annual goal: 2% (therefore need to derive 4% GDP = $500-750 Billion)
2. growth is compounding (Rule of 72)
- current interest on debt is 2.9%; therefore to cover this, we require growth of >2.9%
- Romer (Obama’s economist): a tax increase of 1% GDP will ↓GDP 2-3%
- current revenue projections = 18% GDP; spending projections = 24%
3. sources of new revenue:
- raise income taxes (end Bush tax cuts: 0.9% rich only, 2.1% all lose them)
- index Social Security to all income
- VAT
4. cut spending
- 33% Medicare/Medicaid, 21% SS, 20% defense, 8% debt, 18% discretionary








CONCEPTS:

- Laffer Curve: effect of taxes on revenues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

- Woodhill: tax revenue versus decrease in GDP growth (present value) http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/09/15/hate_the_laffer_curve__try_woodhills_98671.html

- Hauser’s Law: federal tax revenues have been 20% of GDP, regardless of tax rates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser's_Law



- Present Value and Rule of 72: to understand the power of exponential change.
http://www.econguru.com/present-value-and-future-value/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_72

- Free market Capitalism: see Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6vjrzUplWU
remember that economic freedom is better measured by failure than success (See: Schumpeter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction


Go to this website and try the simulator: http://crfb.org/stabilizethedebt/

Science Fiction : and you thought I made this stuff up

"Taken as a whole, the field of science fiction today is where most of the most interesting thought about human society can be found. At a time when many academics have become almost willfully obscure, political science is increasingly dominated by arcane and uninspiring theories and in which a fog of political correctness makes some forms of (badly needed) debate and exploration off limits, science fiction has stepped forward to fill the gap. In the work of writers like David Brin and Neal Stephenson there is more interesting reflection on America’s place in the world than you will find, I fear, in a whole year’s worth of reading in foreign policy magazines. Robert Heinlein’s work brilliantly lays out the ideology of populist libertarianism and predicted the revolt against the welfare state that has defined American politics since the 1980s. Read C. J. Cherryh’s foreigner novels for insight into international relations and her Cyteen novels to sharpen your wits about both international politics and the impact of technological change on human society.

The biggest single task facing the United States today is the unleashing of our social imagination. We are locked into twentieth century institutions and twentieth century habits of mind. Science fiction is the literary genre (OK, true, sometimes a subliterary genre) where the social imagination is being cultivated and developed. Young people should read this genre to help open their minds to the extraordinary possibilities that lie before us; we geezers should read it for the same reason. The job of our times is to build a radically new world; speculative fiction helps point the way."

From: Walter Mead at http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/ on Sept 18,10. Read the whole thing.

Outline for this week's meeting

This week's topic is the federal gov't fiscal gap. Please recommend any changes. Philip

https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1dI47Wcs0B_TulAlhTGD4eyQHetQ8yPabFn4GniJvScA&hl=en&pli=1#

Quote

Tisdall, I Googled this and couldn't find who it was from:

"Economics is history masquerading as physics"

Who wrote this?

- Jimmy

Debate Strategy

Over the course of our meetings, Dr. Tisdall will often critique those participating in discussion on their debate tactics. Here are a few pointers that I remember. I will post these whenever they come up in meetings.

- Never accept someone else's assertion
- Know the difference between asking a question and stating a fact. If one of your points is true, say it as such.
- Re-frame what your opponent is saying. Tell they what they have said. Control the frame.

The Genomics/Proteomics Revolution (a subset of GRIN)
I wanted to follow-up my comments at this week's meeting with a story. You will recall my declaring that your generation is in the midst of a biologic revolution that is rapid and profound and that it will cause changes that are going to disrupt our current cultural fabric. Well, the next morning at work, I met with a salesman from the start-up biotech company Pathwork, who told me that his company, about one year old, was establishing a niche in cancer diagnostics in the area of cancers of unknown primary. This refers to the 5-6% of cancers that first appear after they have spread (called a metastasis), so that it may not be clear what organ they started in. For example, your cancer may first present because it has spread to your liver, even though it started in the colon. This matters, because there are new biologically-derived drugs ( called targeted biotech therapies) that are organ specific. These didn't exist 25 years ago. Until this meeting, all I could have told the doctor about which organ your cancer had started in was, "I don't know". Pathwork has the developed the science that allows them to extract the RNA from as little as 300 tumor cells (a very small amount), examine the RNA for the 2000 gene mutations that they have discovered to occur in the 15 adenocarcinomas likely to metastasize, and tell you which organ your tumor started in. You can then receive the right treatment. Now get this, the first research in this area started just 9 years ago, and now it is at the level of small community hospitals.
If the cost of $4000 sounds like a lot, bear in mind that the biologic drugs cost $6-9,000 /month for as long as you live, which may be years. There are currently 600 new biotech medicines in human clinical trials or under review by the FDA for all diseases (not just cancer). The cultural and political manifestations are quite unimaginable. Philip

Past Club Discussion Notes (from phone notepad)

Let me preface this by saying I wish I had audio records of all of our meetings. Unfortunately this is not so, and all I have in writing is a few quickly typed names and ideas on my phone. Some of these may be hard to understand, but I'll post them all anyway in case they end up triggering thought in someone else's head. I have written within linear brackets [ ] next to a few notes. Writing within these brackets is not from the original note. As I am just going through all of these as I post them, I am emboldening ones which I need to ask about at the next meeting.

- The Fountainhead [Ayn Rand novel]
- Gone With The Wind
- Mirror Neurons
- Minnesota Identical Twins Project
- Definition of Culture: Everything that doesn't need to be explained
- Beyond mirror neurons, you must know how your audience thinks (ie another culture)
- Breaker Morant [1980 film, I ended up watching this, it was brilliant]
- Gallipoli [1981 film, also watched this, also brilliant]
- Atonement [I believe Evan suggested this film, I have not yet seen it]
- The Beach - Leonardo Dicaprio [I believe Evan suggested this film, I have not yet seen it]
- Waterloo [1970 film, I forget who suggested this]
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- A Confederacy of Dunces [novel, I read it over the summer. It was pretty good. Note: Not brilliant.]
- Gender Equality [hahahahahahaha... fuuckkk]
- The Lunar Society [I am unsure where this is from, although I'm pretty sure it was from a Club meeting]
- Allen Furmer writer 1930s [I spelled this incorrectly on my phone, and still have no idea who it is. Tisdall was very enthusiastic about his work. I'll have to find out.]
- All group rights are gained at the expense of other groups. All individual rights come at the expense of government. [and vice versa]
- Rule of 72 [Easy way to calculate doubling rate. I understand how it works, but am still hazy on all of it's economic implications.]
- Camel's Nose [an old Arabian proverb: "If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow."]
- Government doesn't create money. It takes money. [http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN8.html#B.II]
- Hayek Capitalism [Oh how young I was...]
- Blast from the Past [1999 film, context was a discussion of the Fulda Gap. Quote: "CALVIN     What? Did the politburo just one day say - "We give up?" ADAM Yes. That's kind of how it was."]
- Alan Furst [maybe this is the 'Allen Furmer' of a bullet points up...]

And that's all I have from last year's meetings. Hopefully it will spur some thoughts or laughs.
I'll leave you with a funny one from the summer (I try to record great lines); "Well I feel bad that we didn't bring anything... other than our own alcohol."

Notes from last night's meeting. I am now taking liberty to slightly edit these since they are fresh in my mind.:

- Transformation of the female in 1960: Biology (birth control), Homemaking (vacuum), Mental Labor > Physical Labor (The one reason we will always be better than women is upper body strength. Unfortunately that no longer matters.)
- Change comes when self perception changes.
- Algorithms are the new calculus. Calculus is to physics what algorithms are to biology.
- Black Swan [See "Critical Literature" on right]


That is all,

- Jimmy

Welcome Message

I initially sent this to the co-heads and Dr. Tisdall by email, but figure it can double as an intro to those new to the blog:

I sent out invitations to you all so that you can contribute. If anyone has any aesthetic suggestions let me know. The red-white-red stripe is a nod to The Austrian School of economic thought.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I find that at Exeter I have many 10 minute long segments of free time. During these times I read a lot of quick blog posts etc. I get the sense this blog will be the perfect way to continue our banter throughout the week with Tisdall and each other. Given the fact that I value my 1-2 hour of republican club time each week more than any class, in terms of learning efficiency, I hope this will be an effective way of expanding that short amount of time.

Well, I think the best thing to do is hit the ground running with posts. Let's all get writing.

Post anything and everything - Cobbe, links to that book you were talking about, Evan, post those op-eds you wrote, Min-Jae, do whatever it is you do. Tisdall - you are ahead of all of us. As you claimed to the new club members, let this blog be a display of your mind. I think I speak for all of us when I say we really, really want to know what you're thinking.

- Jimmy

Finding Your Stance: The World's Smallest Political Quiz

This has always been a favorite in our little group, and as tiny as it is, it manages to serve its purpose well. So go ahead, take the world's smallest political quiz and find out where you stand!

http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz

Republican Club Publications of the Past

http://pearepublicanclub.wikispaces.com/

http://www.pearepublicanclub.blogspot.com/