As many on this blog are aware, I testified in favor of the confirmation of Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch at his Senate hearing. I believe him to be a jurist with a deep commitment to first principles of constitutional interpretation. It was for that reason that I was taken aback the the dismissive and careless comments on Gorsuch by National Public Radio Legal Affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Totenberg used the Supreme Court podcast “First Mondays” to launch into Gorsuch for what Totenberg described as pedantic and annoying conduct in conferences and oral arguments. Gorsuch’s colleagues on the Tenth Circuit as well as the broader appellate bench uniformly described him as a collegial, civil, and respectful colleague.
Totenberg bizarrely claims that she hears Gorsuch “doesn’t believe in precedent.” This may be a reference to the possibility that Gorsuch might reverse existing cases. However, all of the justices have voted to overturn prior rules. They are entitled to do so even under the narrowest contemporary view of stare decisis. As I discussed in my testimony at the confirmation hearing, Gorsuch continued to apply cases with which he disagreed as an appellate judge, particularly cases following the Chevron doctrine.
Totenberg also chastised Gorsuch for starting statements in oral argument with “Let’s look at what the Constitution says about this … It’s always a good place to start.” He is described by Totenberg as divisive and opinionated. She added:
My surmise, from what I’m hearing, is that Justice Kagan really has taken [Gorsuch] on in conference. And that it’s a pretty tough battle and it’s going to get tougher. And she is about as tough as they come, and I am not sure he’s as tough—or dare I say it, maybe not as smart. I always thought he was very smart, but he has a tin ear somehow, and he doesn’t seem to bring anything new to the conversation.
Putting aside Totenberg’s knowledge of internal deliberations, it is not clear how she gauges the relative toughness of Kagan as opposed to Gorsuch. However, Totenburg’s analysis on this and other Supreme Court issues has been challenged as revealing a strong liberal bias. What is incredible in this case is her statement that Kagan is not only tougher but likely smarter. Of course, it is not hard to imagine the response to a male legal analyst saying that Gorsuch is “smarter” or “tougher” than Kagan. Moreover, this is not some cage match in a test of toughness. It is a test of jurisprudence, not endurance.
This is not the first time that Totenberg has given Kagan a heroic, avenging image. When she was nominated, Totenberg was breathless. She heralded President Barack Obama’s nomination: “In some ways, the descriptions of Elena Kagan as dean [at Harvard University] sound a little bit like the beginning of the old Superman’ TV series. Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands!”
Totenberg has made other statements that reflect a strong bias against conservatives, including the outrageous statement in 1995 to Reason Magazine that Senator Jesse Helms deserves “retributive justice” where he would “get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren would get it.”
I will leave my assessment of Gorsuch’s demeanor and intellect to my earlier testimony. However, it is highly disconcerting to see this type of argumentum ad hominem from NPR.
Sounds to me like Kagan is leaking information about Supreme Court conference sessions (or her version of same) to Nina. Why am i not surprised?
If Steve Bannon was “reporting” on how Gorsuch schooled Kagan, I’m sure Nina and all NPR-loving Progressives would be calling for a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute the leak.
The Orwellian named, Fairness Doctrine was abolished 30 years ago. But, NPR is actually taxpayer funded “fairness doctrine” response to the financially successful conservative radio. Remember the laughable Air America w/ Al Franken. It lasted 5 years, limping and coughing up blood the last 3 years.
Trusting Totenberg for unbiased reporting on SCOTUS will get you just as far as believing in Santa Claus. Except Santa is much more fun
Was’nt Nina Totenberg a member of the John Birch Society?
David Benson, making oracular statements about things you don’t know much about is not a contribution to discussion, any more than the juvenile statements you make in your ‘ken’ persona.
You are a fool.
It is now Justice Kagan’s responsibility to take down Totenberg’s reporting on this in a public manner. If Kagan fails to act she will have done a grave disservice to the Court.
Kagan has better/more important things to do. If the Justices were to respond to every false public statement about the Court they would have no time for anything else.
NPR was for 8 years superintended by Frank Mankiewicz, who had been George McGovern’s campaign manager. Totenberg herself was married to Floyd Haskell, a Democratic member of Congress. It’s always had incestuous dealings with the Democratic Party, and worse. (See Fred Barnes account of the sort of cretin NPR was recruiting to report from Central American ca. 1987). Its production values and range of interests are fairly engaging, but (like PBS) their stories are framed in ways that enhance the line of the sort of social sectors for which the Democratic Party is the electoral vehicle and the people on the air are commonly insufferable. (Daniel Schorr finally drove me out of the NPR audience).
This is unsurprising. Interestingly, Totenberg has admitted in other venues that she’s intellectually mediocre (“I read a lot of mysteries”). Her audience indubitably has many people in it who would insult Sarah Palin. Both Palin and Totenberg enrolled in a J-school ensconced in a research university; Palin finished her degree, Totenberg didn’t.
“Interestingly, Totenberg has admitted in other venues that she’s intellectually mediocre (“I read a lot of mysteries”). ”
Proof?
“I read a lot of mysteries”
Are you sure you aren’t confusing her with Sotomayor?
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/19/169772287/for-justice-sotomayor-books-unlocked-imagination
SOTOMAYOR: I am still a lifelong lover of mysteries. I mean, it fed into my lawyer-policeman desires as a child and my Nancy Drew love of solving mysteries, OK.
TOTENBERG: And mysteries, she points out, can educate. They can transport you to different places and cultures. One of the first to do that for her was Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express.” After that, she became a particular fan of mysteries set in foreign countries.
SOTOMAYOR: Because I would learn about those cultures. So I read mysteries about South Africa, and I really understood apartheid not from the history books I was reading in college but learning about the impact of it on people from the descriptors in these series of books.
TOTENBERG: No single book is her favorite, says Sonia Sotomayor, noting that even a dry manual on writing, like Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style,” became one her most valued volumes as she taught herself to write in college.
SOTOMAYOR: It’s not one individual book, but a key that’s opened a door for my imagination, for my knowledge base, and those windows have enriched my life.
NPR wishes it could be more like the BBC, but fails miserably in trying. Totenberg is one of the reasons why.
Turley said, “Of course, it is not hard to imagine the response to a male legal analyst saying that Gorsuch is “smarter” or “tougher” than Kagan.”
Is the above sentence supposed to be a hypothetical observation that Turley is “imagining”? Or is Turley alluding to an actual, unnamed male legal analyst eliciting Totenberg’s response? It’s hard to imagine how we’re supposed to tell whether Turley’s sentence is hypothetical or otherwise.
Diane – are you just figuring out that Nina Totenberg is also sexist?
Paul–that’s just women’s locker-room talk. Ask Allan. Remember, SOT said there’s no such thing as sexism.
BTW, it’s good to see Dr. Benson stretching his legs. I think he’s in his comfort zone, today.
There is no such thing as ‘sexism’. It’s a rhetorical thrust, not a coherent concept.
Turley seems to be suggesting that Totenberg’s comments about Gorsuch might be sexist. And Paul appears to have taken the bait. Whether Paul is sincere or not remains to be seen. But Turley recently lodged a complaint against certain hiring practices and a possibly hostile workplace environment at the DNC that suggest that Turley sincerely believes in the conceptual coherence and existence of sexism. Otherwise, Turley’s the one who has issues with rhetorical thrusting.
The term was never used by Prof. Turley.
From Turely’s OP on the Dnc boilerplate response thread:
“The “preference” to exclude people due to their sexuality, gender, and race is discriminatory and unlawful. The concern was that the DNC might have fostered an environment where such discrimination is not just tolerated but supported.”
Admittedly, the term sexism does not appear in the above sentences. However, those same sentences provide coherence to the concept of sexism as unlawful discrimination based on gender rather than merely another conceptually incoherent rhetorical thrust.
Apparently, Diane (Late 4 Dinner) has spent a large portion of her life in men’s locker rooms. She is terribly confused.
Counterfactual fantasy not in evidence, you fact-free fictional historian, you.
OTOH, locker rooms have something to do with sports; don’t they? Turley also lodged the following complaint about Totenberg’s commentary on Kagan versus Gorsuch:
“Moreover, this is not some cage match in a test of toughness. It is a test of jurisprudence, not endurance.”
IOW, Turley sees Totenburg’s female legal analysis as being more like sports commentary than legal analysis. Out of curiosity, is Turley a male legal analyst? Has Turley made any comments on Gorsuch? Is Totenburg in a cage match with Turley testing his toughness and endurance rather than Gorsuch’s or Kagan’s jurisprudence? Just wondering.
Diane, you seem fixated on locker-rooms men, women and other. Do you frequent all of them? Alternatively, do you just fantasize about them? Outside of your odd fantasies, I don’t have the slightest idea what you are trying to say.
Allan, why don’t you just hire someone to scratch you head for you?
“Allan, why don’t you just hire someone to scratch you head for you?”
The above is irrelevant to the discussion, but I can do such things for myself. However, the questions I raised remain unanswered.
“Diane, you seem fixated on locker-rooms men, women and other. Do you frequent all of them? Alternatively, do you just fantasize about them? Outside of your odd fantasies, I don’t have the slightest idea what you are trying to say.”
Totenburg,Kagan and Ginsburg are smarter than Turley. That settles it.
Ken – I have known rocks who were smarter than Totenberg, so that affects my judgment of her judgment. Besides, where is she getting this information, the conferences are justices only, so is Kagan tooting her own horn or is Ginburg tooting Kagan’s horn?
The affection for Totenberg (and, Barack Obama in a more attenuated way) are manifestations of a phenomenon Thomas Sowell identified as being endemic among bourgeois liberals: a tendency to confuse intelligence and articulateness.
OMG, AAWG is so intelligent.
Ken, perhaps Turley wants Totenburg to be as coy as he is. Instead of asserting that Kagan is smarter and tougher than Gorsuch, Turley would have Totenburg imagine the response to a male legal analyst such as Turley asserting that Gorsuch is smarter and tougher than Kagan, then edit her female legal analysis according to Turley’s imaginary male coyness. After all, Turley didn’t actually say that Gorsuch is smarter and tougher than Kagan. He coyly imagined it.
Turley makes Fox News proud . Hip hip hooray for Bill O and Seanie.
Ken, they are quick to take offense at perceived slights. And quicker still to circle the wagons ’round the beleaguered pilgrims.
If we leave out the ” Of course” that is a simple declaratory sentence which speaks for itself. It is true to the blog’s logo in that it is a literal res ipsa loquitur.
I think you have some political or social point that you are trying to convey but you have failed miserably.
John Jansen said, “I think you have some political or social point that you are trying to convey but you have failed miserably.”
What sort of point is Turley’s supposedly simple declarative sentence trying to convey, John Jansen, if not a political or social point that Turley neglected simply to declare?
P. S. John Jansen, res ipsa loquitur translates as the thing itself speaks. The thing speaks for itself is written res ipse loquitur. The title of Turley’s blawg is, therefore, a pun. And those who post on Turley’s blawg are the thing itself speaking.
If you truly mean what you wrote here, Diane, then your reading comprehension is truly lacking. Re-read Turley’s sentence: …it is not hard to imagine…
FFS, since your reading comprehension is better than mine, you should have no trouble telling me what Turley is inviting us to imagine, even though Turley didn’t actually tell us what he is imagining. When you do that, compare it to what I wrote in just such a way as to expose my lack of reading comprehension.
P. S. Who is the unnamed male legal analyst at issue in Turley’s imagination?
What to say about Nina Totenberg?
After Totenberg wrote an Observer profile of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the latter wrote a long letter to the paper’s editor demanding she be fired. Instead, the editor printed the letter in the Observer along with a rebuttal of Hoover’s complaints regarding the article.
She was fired from that paper for plagiarism in 1972 regarding a profile she wrote of then-soon-to-be Speaker Tip O’Neill which included, without attribution, quotes from members of Congress that had previously appeared in The Washington Post. In 1995, Totenberg told the Columbia Journalism Review, “I have a strong feeling that a young reporter is entitled to one mistake and to have the “holy bejeezus” scared out of her to never do it again.
Nina says “holy bejeezus”……God is not mocked Nina…..Another mistake Nina!
And the plagiarizing St Stephen apparently ain’t a saint, as he cribs from Wikipedia and omits a couple of interesting sentences from his quotes:
“Totenberg has said that the dismissal also related to her rebuffing of sexual overtures from an editor. Many of Totenberg’s colleagues have defended her, noting that this was a case of using previously reported quotes, a common journalistic practice in the 1970s.”
From Wikipedia, without the non-saint’s omissions:
“After Totenberg wrote an Observer profile of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the latter wrote a long letter to the paper’s editor demanding she be fired. Instead, the editor printed the letter in the Observer along with a rebuttal of Hoover’s complaints regarding the article.
“She was fired from that paper for plagiarism in 1972 regarding a profile she wrote of then-soon-to-be Speaker Tip O’Neill which included, without attribution, quotes from members of Congress that had previously appeared in The Washington Post. Totenberg has said that the dismissal also related to her rebuffing of sexual overtures from an editor. Many of Totenberg’s colleagues have defended her, noting that this was a case of using previously reported quotes, a common journalistic practice in the 1970s. In 1995, Totenberg told the Columbia Journalism Review, “I have a strong feeling that a young reporter is entitled to one mistake and to have the holy bejeezus scared out of her to never do it again.”
The term ‘plagiarism’ does not mean what you fancy it means.
Totenberg’s dismissal has been a matter of common knowledge for decades, btw.
Again: “Totenberg has said that the dismissal also related to her rebuffing of sexual overtures from an editor. Many of Totenberg’s colleagues have defended her, noting that this was a case of using previously reported quotes, a common journalistic practice in the 1970s.”
“The term ‘plagiarism’ does not mean what you fancy it means.”
Reallly?
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-05/gorsuch-s-plagiarism-is-worthy-of-embarrassment But not disqualifying…..
The important piece of information to be gleaned from the article is “this sort of paraphrase is actually fairly common in judicial opinions”. Pot shots are common, but if the author wants to make the accusation of plagiarism then the author ought to be accusing the judiciary as a whole and not individually since as a whole they all appear to do the same thing making it an acceptable practice in that venue.
“Yet it’s also true, as Gorsuch’s defenders are insisting, that the unattributed borrowing seems to consist only of the presentation of rather dry facts — and not any argument or original idea borrowed without attribution, which would be heavy-duty plagiarism. The defenders are also right that this sort of paraphrase is actually fairly common in judicial opinions and even some legal academic writing. It’s poor form not to cite a secondary source from which you’ve mined primary sources. “
Paraqphrase is a fine figure of speech. And a common one, to boot. Thus, if unattributed borrowing is an acceptable practice in the venue of judicial opinions, then perhaps one ought not to begrudge Totenburg her unattributed quotations in the venue of journalism.
Otherwise, Allan ought to exonerate journalism as a whole and find fault only with Totenburg individually, as St. Stephen did, since as a whole journalists appear to do the opposite thing making unattributed borrowing an unacceptable practice in that venue.
I predict that Allan will disagree with exonerating journalism as a whole.
Each discipline has its own rules. The judiciary I suspect has certain needs because of the clarity desired. It might just be that too much secondary attributions might diminish such clarity as the judge is making the determinations of law and fact, not the one being paraphrased.
Nina as an opinion journalist should be giving credit where credit is due for she is not a judge providing a decision rather a person providing an opinion that others read.
“I predict that Allan will disagree with exonerating journalism as a whole.”
Journalism divides itself into news and opinion. The problem with many journalists is they don’t know the difference and apparently you don’t know the difference either.
Diane, I don’t know how to break it to you, but composing a judicial opinion is a collaborative effort, especially appellate opinions. Judges vary in their procedures, but much of the research and drafts of the opinion are commonly produced by clerks. The labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegen has offered that in his experience there was a sea change somewhere in the early 1970s regarding the role of clerks (“Young clerks madly quoting each other. A judge might sound like Cardozo in one opinion and Ken Kesey in the next depending on which clerk wrote the opinion”). The process is more akin to screenwriting than academic work or journalism. (There are, btw, union rules about who gets screen credit and who does not for a script).
Politicians do not write their own speeches, either (with some exceptions like Rudolph Giuliani and Mario Cuomo). The speechwriters names are known to the press and some are tiresome self-promoters (Michael Gerson was notorious). Corporations commonly have communications departments which produce PR issued under the name of one executive or another.
In journalism, there are some double bylines, but the draft of an article is generally composed by a reporter and then filtered through editors. Totenberg was canned because she violated the paper’s standards, not the standards of the Massachusetts appellate courts. (The Wiki article refers to the Washington Post in 1972. IIRC, the incident was actually a number of years earlier and occurred at the defunct Boston Post).
Academicians, of course, can be quite harsh with each other and harsher with their students. There was a famous case of a professor canned from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville for plagiarism. All of his academic work was original. He’d found a statement of teaching philosophy on the Web he agreed with and dropped it into his dossier applying for tenure. The Chronicle of Higher Education contacted the professor who wrote the original statement for comment. No, it didn’t bother him that someone had appropriated his statement; he though it was an edge case and would not have disciplined the appropriator himself.
AAWG, I don’t know how to break this to you, but you haven’t said very much different than what I said:
“Otherwise, Allan ought to exonerate journalism as a whole and find fault only with Totenburg individually, as St. Stephen did, since as a whole journalists appear to do the opposite thing making unattributed borrowing an unacceptable practice in that venue.”
If you seek to refute the above statement, then, at a minimum, you should assert something different than the above statement you seek to refute. Refutation by paraphrase is not refutation at all.
One of the great things about 21st Century technology is that we no longer need to rely on someone like Nina Totenberg’s characterization of a Supreme Court justice. The Supreme Court streams oral arguments in real time and posts its decisions daily. Read, listen, and develop your own opinions. I have and am quite impressed with Justice Gorsuch.
“They are nothing but a pack of cards!”
Paul hasn’t bothered to learn the history of early automatic computers. UNIVAC installed the earliest commercial machines; the first did payroll for a GE factory. IBM’s first competitor was the 703, soon replaced by the 705. My first programs were for the so-called scientific machines, the 704, maybe for me, but certainly the 709. As these were at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, these were not in-house at IBM.
Paul disremembers about the IBM 6400. There was never a computer by IBM with that designation. Check Wikipedia.
And yes, I still have and use a slide rule. But nobody doing that was ever called a computer. Those using a mechanical calculator were called computers in the days before automatic computers. By the way, I built one while in high school. Won second prize in the 1957 WESCON science fair.
David Benson – how many k of memory was your prize-winning computer? And what language did you code it in?
It was a relay computer with the program on punched paper tape glued into a loop, similar to the Harvard Mark I. It had 4, only 4, 4 bit words of storage as building those was boring and I only had 500 relays.
David Benson – congrats!!! That was some achievement for a high school student. 🙂
David Benson – okay, I will agree on the GE machine, assuming you have the dates right. However, Wikipedia has a 50/50 chance of being correct. Having worked on two IBM 6400s, one in Omaha and one in Phoenix, I am well aware of what they are and did. I spent 12 hours a day 6 or 7 days a week inputting data for the machine to operate on. IBM even offered me a job coding, but I wanted to finish college first.
I have never heard of this machine. It could have been an IBM 1401 with a 6400 printer instead of the more expensive 1403 printer.
Puzzled.
David Benson – the IBM people in both Omaha and Phoenix called it a 6400. I was just hired to help both companies with the initial data input. I worked from 6pm to 6am inputting data onto cards with magnetic tape strips on the back. I am not familiar with the 1400 series.
Another possibility is that the machine was an IBM System 3 with a 6400 printer. Were the punched cards the older 80 column Hollerith rectangular style or the System 3 96 position almost square ones?
David Benson – we are beyond punch cards. We are up to magnetic tape strips on cards.
“Totenburg’s analysis on this and other Supreme Court issues has been challenged as revealing a strong liberal bias.”
~+~
I believe it is a foregone conclusion that NPR presents a strong bias in its reporting.
Fine. Just don’t make the mistake of calling it liberal.
That’s not a mistake David. You’re having trouble with words. Dementia sucks.
Exactly, David B. It’s like labeling Hillary a liberal. NPR rarely allows a liberal/progressive voice on its programs.
No, Bill Buckley bent the words out of all recognition, despoiling the language. For a decent so-called conservative, read Isaiah Berlin.
Bill Buckley did no such thing. He put the words into proper perspective so that Liberals would have to live with what they wrote and said. That is why recently Liberals became so disgusted with their positions that they had to change their name to progressives.
If I recall Berlin was most known for his concepts involving liberty. Amazing how in our Liberal schools they use violence to prevent freedom of speech. I don’t think he would approve today if he were alive.
Tell that about progressives to Teddy Roosevelt.
Violence is always wrong.
“Violence is always wrong.”
Then why is violence the mainstay to prevent conservatives from speaking at college campuses?
Both Teddy and FDR would roll over in their graves if they were able to be informed of the Liberals of today.
They aren’t liberals, irrespective of the capitalization.
Leftists and the Liberals of today aren’t classical liberals. However, the term is misused in common literature so the word will persist in our language.
We have seen tremendous cultural shifts in recent years that make political terms even more confusing. Presently many millennial leftists have little idea of what they are talking about. I don’t think they understand what communism is nor do they understand the number of innocent lives taken in the 20th century by those promoting leftist ideologies throughout the world.
A history class would set them right.
I think they need more than one history class. It seems they learn politics and history from comedians who don’t appear to be the smartest crayons in the box.
We need to dispense with a lot of courses that are near meaningless and can be learned by going to a library. We need proficiency in the 3 R’s in the earlier grades and a lot more focus on STEM when in college.Too many people are graduating with degrees that leave them without jobs.
I agree with your last sentence but an article in yesterday’s TNYT suggests that STEM education won’t solve that problem.
TNYT is always predicting what will happen in the future and they are generally wrong.
Didn’t they predict Trump would lose and Hillary would win in a landslide?
Why not? Your side redefines words all the time to change society and achieve political goals. It redefined marriage. Your side now pretends a man born with a penis who likes wearing lipstick and playing dress up is a woman. Your side is trying to redefine “violence” so it includes words so you can control how people think and speak.
Liberal meant one thing in the Enlightenment. It means almost the polar opposite today. Word definitions are fluid. They change.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, communists, socialists, progressives, leftists, collectivists and statists began the project of changing America from a laissez fare individualistic society into a collectivist one. They perversely claimed the word “liberal” for themselves. It stuck. They changed the definition, just like your side has changed the definition of what marriage means, what “woman” means, and is in the process of redefining “violence” to help you achieve your political goals via thought control.
You may find this a useful read:
https://home.isi.org/plea-regarding-ldquoliberalrdquo
Bill Buckley recognized that the word liberal had been usurped by the left and I believe that is why he started capitalizing the letter L in the word to indicate a political movement just like the way one capitalizes the D in Democratic Party.
Buckley even provided us with a quick description of a Liberal (as opposed to a liberal). “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” But that description was of an earlier date before Liberals became almost totally embedded with hate some of which shows up on this blog. That was at a time that Bill Buckley was skiing with his Liberal friend Kenneth Galbraith. Today the Liberal movement has in part degenerated into a violent tribalistic movement seen in the violent protests of ANTIFA, BLM and the suppression of free speech on the college campus.
The term originally referred to the political order which tended to be favored by the burgesses. In turn-of-the-century discussions, you sometimes see the term ‘social-liberal’ to describe people of a Whig liberal bent who’d taken an interest in forms of political-economy which redistributed benefits toward wage-earners. In the United States the term was appropriated by Franklin Roosevelt and his votaries to refer to a jumble of social democratic measures with an eclectic inspiration and justification. Liberal parties surviving into the postwar period (in Scandinavia, Britain, the Low Countries, and Germany) might well be described either way.
In the post-war period, it came to be that nexus of measures favored by the word-merchant element.
…And how does your addition pertain to the use of the capital L. Buckley”s quote and skiing with Galbraith?
It’s in counterpoirnt to Scott’s remarks. This isn’t that difficult.
“This isn’t that difficult.”
I guess though it is difficult to place the reply in the right place. 🙂
Isaiah Berlin is never categorized as a conservative by anyone not named ‘David Benson’.
What David B. Benson actually wrote was, “For a decent so-called conservative, read Isaiah Berlin.”
Emphasis on the “so-called,” or the “decent,” if you prefer.
The question has been asked — and, gee, the author isn’t “David Benson.”
https://www.city-journal.org/html/was-liberalism’s-philosopher-chief-conservative-12916.html
“Was Liberalism’s Philosopher-in-Chief a Conservative?”
Michael Knox Beran
Winter 2006
So unless Michael Knox Beran is David Benson…
anonymous, I love your work.
P. S. It appears from reading the linked article that Michael Knox Beran may be a conservative. If so, then I suspect that Dr. Benson’s use of the qualifiers “decent” and “so-called” before the term “conservative” in reference to Isaiah Berlin, implies that Dr. Benson regards Isaiah Berlin as a liberal.
In any case, David B. Benson is not Michael Knox Beran. Unfortunately, AAWG still has a tiny little loophole left to exploit: namely, Beran was less than “categorical” is his questioning of Berlin’s hypothetical conservatism. But then, that loophole leads right back to Dr. Benson being anything but categorical is his original comment about Berlin.
Paul Schulte suggests neo-left. Other than the implication that the diversity of views is binary that is ok.
But how about neo-full-of-herself?
“Bill Buckley was wrong.”
Fourth graders can be non-specific in argument, but some say you were a professor so we have to hold you to a higher standing than a fourth grader
I was a professor of computer science. Precise and enduring definitions are important.
Then you should definitely recognize that words in the none technical world change and that you have to keep up to date. My wife’s degree I think was called system design. She had a National Science Scholarship to study it while she was in high school and then got a scholarship in the second year the program was offered (I think 3 universities offered the degree at the time.)
The enlightenment was a result of liberal thought. Use another term for the person in question.
David Benson – what you don’t seem to realize is that words shift meaning with time. A gay cabellero 50 years ago is not the same as one today. 😉 That is the problem with the people in the science departments, they never seem to take enough English literature classes.
There is no enlightenment in the Liberal thoughts of today.
Liberals are not classical liberals and for the most part, they are not enlightened.
Classical liberals were not Romantics. The conservative Romantics called Adam Smith by the name, Radical. It wasn’t until J. S. Mill and The Reform Bill of 1832 that classical liberals had managed to shake off the burden of that Radical appellation. But by then the classical liberals had become fully utilitarian in their ethos as well as their economic theory: The greatest good for greatest number. There’s a halfway decent chance that Dr. Benson regards liberalism as a product of J. S. Mill’s rendition of The Summum Bonum.
“Classical liberals were not Romantics.”
Classical liberalism didn’t rule out Romanticism.
“The conservative Romantics called Adam Smith by the name, Radical.”
The word “radical” has many meanings and is used in a different fashion in different centuries.
“But by then the classical liberals had become fully utilitarian in their ethos as well as their economic theory: The greatest good for greatest number.”
Are you not confusing classical utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham (Benthamism) and John Stuart Mill) with classical liberalism?
Allan asked, “Are you not confusing classical utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham (Benthamism) and John Stuart Mill) with classical liberalism?”
No. There’s a clear chain of custody from Bentham to Mill, the elder, to Mill, the younger. They were literally acquainted with one another. Their utilitarian ethos was literally handed down from the older generation to the younger generation.
Meanwhile, the wretched excesses of The [First] Industrial Revolution caused the classical liberals of laissez faire economic theory to adopt the utilitarian ethos in just such a way that they eventually became the Liberals of Gladstone’s day and age. It was not until the end of the Gladstone era and the beginning of the Disraeli era that the laissez-faire economists became Tories and, by extension, conservatives.
As for Dr. Benson’s take on the subject, I can only speculate that Dr. Benson may be more concerned with severe environmental distress and degradation than the denotation of the terms liberal or Liberal. But that’s just a guess.
You are tying things together by date and familiarity and the fact that philosophy builds upon the past. The theory behind the classical liberal is different than Benthamism.
David Benson – I worked on the IBM 6400 in 1962 and there is nothing precise or enduring about computers, either hardware or software. Moore’s Law states that things will change at least every 18 months and they do or faster. I bought the first Tandy (Trash-80) computer with a cassette deck to record programs on when it first came out. I paid roughly about the same for that as the computer I have today. My original computer had 8k of memory and I remember how excited I was to go to 16k and then 32k. In those days we wrote our own programs in BASIC. Today, my computer has 3T of memory and I have a secondary drive with just as much memory. Hurrah for Moore’s Law.
What is precise and enduring are the definitions. For examples, a bit is still a Shannon bit and a byte is still 8 bits.
“What is precise and enduring are the definitions. For examples, a bit is still a Shannon bit and a byte is still 8 bits.”
A Liberal of today has very little in common to the earlier classical liberal. Liberals misuse the term.
Fine. Don’t make the mistake of calling those people liberals.
David Benson – I will call out a liberal when I see one and Nina Totenburg is a liberal. You need to move from the 18th century.
“Fine. Don’t make the mistake of calling those people liberals.”
I generally call them Liberals (Cap. L) or leftists to denote the difference, however, Liberals misuse terms all the time and our news media does as well.
David Benson – and yet the term “computer” is stolen from the people who used to do it by hand. All those little people with a slide rule, before calculators, made it easy. Even calculator is stolen from them. You ever learn to use a slide rule? Or an IBM calculator? You ever work on an IBM 6400? It was the first commercial IBM computer.
I’m older than that. The first commercial IBM computer was the 703. As best I recall, my first program was for a 709.
Long before a 6400, whatever that was.
David Benson – give me a date and a firm.
Mid 50s, IBM.
“Mid 50s, IBM.”
Are you dating yourself or just providing a date? What was your degree that brought you into computer science?
David Benson – then it is not commercial, it is still in-house.
Nope.
David Benson – unless it goes out the door, it is in-house. I think you may be mis-remembering.
The IBM 6400 was a matrix line printer, not a computer.
David Benson – the 6400 was an accounting machine for businesses. You have not answered my question.
Not according to Wikipedia.
David Benson – I hope as a professor you did not allow your students to rely on Wikipedia as a source of information. Studies have shown you have a 50% chance of getting the right answer. Who knows better, someone who actually worked on the machine or someone who wrote a survey article on Wikipedia?
You don’t remember the model number. Further checking shows that IBM did not introduce the 6400 until 1999.
David Benson – when you hear IBM pi** and moan about the problems with their 6400 and you work on it, you tend to remember the name of the system. Especially, when you work on 2 of them. They may have re-cycled the numbers by 1999, but in 1999 it was called a 6400. I do not understand why you are making such a big deal out of this. I worked on it, you clearly didn’t. You know your machines, I know my machines.
This is what a fallen nation looks like.
I’m sorely tempted to agree with you Michael; except that I can’t tell from your comment exactly to what else I might be agreeing.
Nina Totenburg is a flaming liberal and one of the reasons I no longer listen to NPR. She puts a liberal spin on all SC decisions or cases before the courts. Nina is just trying to “bag” Gorsuch much like the MSM is trying to bag Trump. He gets one vote just like Kagan, although my understanding is that as junior asst justice he speaks last in the conference. I think the “wise Latina” is a little full of herself.
Not “liberal”. Learn to use the dictionary.
David, this is a political blog so the definition of the word Liberal is the political one. You are the one that has to refer to a dictionary and a book explaining the political context of these words. Unfortunately, you are a bit behind.
Yes, it was a bunch of liberals that wrote the constitution. I had rather thought that was a political act.
The name classical liberal can be shortened to liberal, but some people and it appears you are one of them cannot distinguish between the classical liberal and the Liberal presently under discussion. The former, classical liberal, is a powerful way of thinking. The Liberal is powerful only in its lack of thinking.
this is a political blog so the definition of the word Liberal is the political one.
And here I thought it was a legal blog. It’s a bit ridiculous to expect there to be a clear definition of terms using politics as some measurable reference point. Try using the law, more specifically try using the constitution as the reference point to define terms. Although not often referenced in connection to the constitution, the Declaration of Independence should actually be the true reference point. More specifically, the 4 self-evident truth: Equality, Natural Rights, The purpose for government, Changing the government. This is what a Classical Liberal believes.
Olly, you are right that this is supposed to be a legal blog, but in reality, it has been turned into a political blog as the progressives on the blog twist the law to meet their progressive desires. Confusion is part of being a progressive for without confusion one might actually have to visualize what progressives stand for.
To think that most of the progressives actually care more about the Constitution than their politics would be a bad mistake.
The Constitution is a piece of legal architecture. What one should respect is procedural norms to regulate political conflict and provide legal security. That is the value of charters. One need not be invested in the precise rules and procedures themselves. The institutional architecture is quite suboptimal. For the time being, however, it is the institutional architecture.
And yes, the problem with the left is that they just want what they want, like children. They project that mentality on the normies.
To think that most of the progressives actually care more about the Constitution than their politics would be a bad mistake.
I certainly agree. A great example of the shape-shifting progressive ideology is in how they abandon brands but not philosophy. We have a contributor on this blog that is now rejecting the Democratic Party and is claiming to be an Independent. She has been very vocal about denying big government Democrats as being of the Progressive movement. She then goes on to support Tulsi Gabbard who is in my opinion is a big government progressive. They will now try to co-op those that have abandoned the two major political parties and claim they are now Independents. We’ll end up with Independent meaning nothing more than the farm team for the R’s or the D’s.
Olly, I don’t bother too much with who says what except for specific people like yourself so I can’t remember the person you mention. Can you provide the name so I can review what was said?
I think you and I would prefer a solid discussion of the law and how it is being implemented with special emphasis on the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.
I believe he is either referring to Jill or Autumn.
Which brings up a question: Where is our Girl Reporter? I haven’t seen a post from her in quite some time.
That is a good question. I hope she comes back.
Thanks, People always claim to be things they aren’t. I always remember Reagan being elected. Before his election, so many people called him stupid and said how he would destroy the nation. Looking back almost all of them said they voted for him. Selective memories seem to exist to permit mindless left wingers to forget their stupidity.
The one that I was referring to was Autumn. She has on numerous occasions attempted to put progressivism in a positive light by separating it from the Democratic Party. She’ll blast the Democratic Party and readily identify as Independent. I’ve blasted the Republicans and readily identify as Independent. The difference is we are polar opposites on government. She is a progressive, just not one that supports either the R or the D, but a candidate (Tulsi Gabbard) that is clearly not a classical liberal.
This is a very good article regarding what is Classical Liberalism.
“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society,” another foundational classical liberal, Frederic Bastiat, wrote in “The Law.” “As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”
http://thefederalist.com/2017/11/07/no-joy-reid-classical-liberal-not-soft-socialist/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=da13166590-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-da13166590-79248369
The appeal of socialism is that one doesn’t have to think. Problems are blamed on the people doing the heavy lifting while those in power try to move and influence them like chess pieces on a board that doesn’t exist. The non-thinking individual has someone to blame, the actual producer, while cheering those in government that lie and steal.
David Benson – all dictionaries are at least a year out of date. So even if you pick the one you like best, I like the term flaming liberal. Does that bother you? Do you have a better term for Nina that describes her politics? Do you like progressive better? I know that liberals are constantly trying to rebrand themselves, so what is the new term? Neo-left?
Paul wrote: “He gets one vote just like Kagan, although my understanding is that as junior asst justice he speaks last in the conference. I think the “wise Latina” is a little full of herself.”
Justice Elena Kagan is Jewish. “Wise Latina” is a phrase associated with Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
anonymous – you see one liberal justice you see them all. 🙂
Turley, it is not a “liberal” bias. Choose your words with greater care.
David, are you saying that Totenberg has a “conservative” bias? Totenburg certainly has views that are not balanced.
Bias is not binary.
Bias is not NECESSARILY binary but when you are dealing with Totenberg and NPR it generally is.
Foolishly narrow of you. Learn more descriptors.
Learn reality and learn what you are talking about. So far your initial premise was wrong along with all those that followed.
Look up the dictionary definition of liberal.
There are multiple definitions of the word liberal. I advocate using a capital L Liberal when talking about those of the Liberal persuasion (Bill Buckley started it). There are classical liberals, completely different than the Liberal today that usurped the word. Liberals have to keep changing what they call themselves because their policies are so rancid that after a while people get a bad taste.
Bill Buckley was wrong.
“Bill Buckley was wrong.”
Fourth graders can be non-specific in argument, but some say you were a professor so we have to hold you to a higher standing than a fourth grader
David Benson – when it came to words, Bill Buckley was never wrong. 😉