My America Is One of Action
More from this column:
- Obama Part II: What Remains to Be Done
- Obama Part I: Those Who Made It Possible
- Address Apartheid in Israel-Palestine
- Spread Cost of War to All of Society
- For Real Change, Vote on the Real Issues
- Hill's Far From Extreme, Even if She's a Woman
- How College Can Change You if You're Open-Minded
- My America Is One of Action
- Pope Must Atone for the Sins of His Past
- American 'Democracy' Far From Democratic
“Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.” —Mother Jones
In the last 250 years, our nation gained independence from the British Empire, abolished slavery, achieved suffrage for women, and secured civil rights, the eight-hour workday and an end to child labor. And not one of these victories was won because of voting; not one was handed down to us by a benevolent government that had not been forced to acquiesce by popular struggle.
I’ve been accused more than once this semester of being anti-American. But histories, as much as futures, are sites of struggle — struggle to determine what is essential and what accidental, what commendable and what shaming. If one defines America by genocidal Indian wars, foreign aggression, environmental devastation, suppression of unions or international economic exploitation, then I am most certainly anti-American. But in counterpoint to the history of Andrew Jackson, Bull Connor, Richard Nixon and Henry Frick is another history to which I proudly pledge allegiance.
My America is the land of Elihu Burritt, David Thoreau, William Pitt, Mark Twain, John Brown, Crazy Horse, Alice Paul, Emma Goldman, Dorothy Day, Murray Bookchin, Fred Shuttlesworth, Dan and Phil Berrigan, Noam Chomsky, Liz McAlister, Malcolm X, Mother Jones, Jack and Lucy Parsons, and Joe Hill. My America contains the people who built the underground railroad and the sanctuary movement, Students for a Democratic Society and Vietnam Vets Against the War, the feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the civil rights movement and the ecological movement; people who opposed death squads in Latin America and apartheid in South Africa, who stood with workers for global justice and with Palestinian refugees. My American history took place in Selma and Stonewall, Little Big Horn and Big Mountain, Kent State and Jackson State, Homestead and Haymarket.
If you do not know the history of any of these, the classic and essential first book in your study should be Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.” And the first thing that Zinn will teach you is that no individual ever built a movement, that the people above were both flawed and ultimately inessential. Change comes from masses of people finding a way to live their lives collectively in committed resistance to oppression. Everyone who says “no” when told to participate in injustice, who chooses love over division, who rejects privilege, who stands in solidarity and devotes his or her talents to building a better world, is a hero in the only sense that matters.
Over 20 years ago, I met a woman named Mabel Karsch. Mabel died in 2001 at the age of 96 without ever doing anything that is likely to make it into a history books. But sometime in the1930s, she decided to contribute one evening a week to social justice work. And when I met her 50 years later, she had, by common community reckoning, never missed a week. That, my friends, is a life.
People like Mabel, or my early political mentor Molly Rush — both of whom worked at the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh — are rarely mentioned in political science classes. This is a shame, because Molly is one of the most brilliant strategic thinkers I have known — whether she is addressing local poverty, organizing her fellow inmates in federal prison or analyzing the military industry — and students who hope to build real democracy would do well to study people like Molly, or far better, to apprentice to them.
The most obvious first step in democratic apprenticeship is community-based learning. Georgetown students who work with the poor, with immigrants — the discarded people of global capitalism — have learned skills that cannot be gained in the classroom. Beyond this, students who organize learn skills essential to fundamental political change, skills desperately needed in the struggles to come. A few years ago, Georgetown merchandise was made in sweatshops, Georgetown employees were not guaranteed a living wage and Georgetown lacked a commitment to a resource center for sexual minority students. No doubt the administration deserves credit for implementing changes more willingly than most institutions would have. But without student organization, commitment and pressure, none of these changes would have come about.
In the famous words of Frederick Douglass: “The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. … If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
So as a new class graduates, I wish you all flourishing, productive, just and joyous lives. As you go into the next phase of life, continue to learn your history, continue to embrace the America and the world that struggled before you, but always remember that what matters most is what remains. We face urgent struggles against environmental destruction, war, imperialism, the prison industry, poverty, sexism, homophobia and above all, authoritarianism in all its guises. It is a daunting struggle to be sure, but if we know where to look, in our past and our present, we will find countless allies. And if we find them and devote our life to a struggle for justice, then win or lose, we will know who we were.
La Lucha Continua.
Mark Lance is a professor in the philosophy department and a professor and program director in the Program on Justice and Peace. He can be reached at lance@thehoya.com. COGNITIVE DISSIDENT appears every other Friday.
Want to be heard too? Apply to be a columnist for THE HOYA. Visit http://www.thehoya.com/applications for more information.
Apr 25 2008 at 2:42 p.m.
Professor Lance: "In the last 250 years, our nation gained independence from the British Empire, abolished slavery, achieved suffrage for women, and secured civil rights, the eight-hour workday and an end to child labor. And not one of these victories was won because of voting..."
The Declaration of Independence was ratified by vote-- as were (respectively) the 13th, 19th, and 15th Amendments and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Indeed every single one your listed victories was won by the vote.
Moreover, it is the democratic vote that legimated these victories. They would not have been won (nor endured) without that legitimacy.
Here endeth the lesson.
Apr 25 2008 at 3:03 p.m.
Classical Liberalism, please tell me: Do you think the British would have left if Americans had not been willing to fight and die to defend their Declaration of Independence? Do you think that laws protecting civil rights for African Americans would have been passed had they not taken to the streets and demanded them, braving water cannons, police dogs, and homicidal thugs in white robes? Do you think that labor laws which protect workers would have been passed if unions had not struck, even before striking was legal, and fought against police, and goons hired by their bosses for their rights to better wages and working conditions?
When changes are made, they are rarely (if ever) the result of legislative initiative. The people, organized, take to the streets, break the law, and fight to demand what they deserve. Then, sometimes, the men who sit on Capitol Hill realize that they have to pass a law if they want things to stabilize again.
Mark is not claiming that legislative action was not involved, but that changes were not brought about by political campaigns for office. When labor unions wanted an 8 hour work day, they didn't put up a candidate for office, they demanded what they deserved. The same goes for all the other victories he lists.
Apr 26 2008 at 4:52 a.m.
The labor breakthroughs of the early to mid 20th century were actually the work of the Supreme Court abandoning Lochner Era ideals and giving more deference to state legislatures. While the idea of a working class struggle against capitalist overlords is a nice idea, it is a historical fiction. Ironically, the rulings that established the 8 hour work day, created minimum wage, and abolished child labor laws restricted the freedom of contract of the workers. It made more economic sense for employees to be limited by hour and wage constraints, and they were so limited.
Apr 26 2008 at 12:26 p.m.
OW: So, you think that the Supreme court is responsible for requirements that were all eventually passed as laws after decades of activist and union struggle, that this struggle had nothing to do with changes in either the legislatures or the courts -- they just sort of changed their minds and decided that they agreed with the workers -- and that they were all a bad idea. Right. 9 year olds are much more free if they are allowed to contract to work in coal mines. It makes much more "economic sense" for employees to be limited by wage constraints. Poor dumb textile workers thinking they were better off making a minimum wage. It is really sad that all those folks didn't have the wisdom of fine economists to point out to them just how well off they were. I urge anyone interested in this topic to go read something about the history of Appalachia so as to learn something about the reality of "economic sense" for actual humans of the conditions we are talking about here.
The reality is, as Conor says, legislatures and courts step into these struggles and mark incremental gains in law precisely so as to stop more systematic changes from happening. There are always bad consequences from the changes, but it isn't because the previous conditions were better. It is because the struggle isn't finished.
As for Hoya10 you know, you are probably right. I"m just a nutcase. Stupid too. Thanks so much for the intelligent and thoughtful feedback. I'll be sure to give it the attention it deserves.
Mark Lance
Apr 26 2008 at 1:57 p.m.
Stripped of all the hyperbole, Lance's article says something thats absolutely true -- law is a lagging indicator of the people's intent. First because legislators and judges are risk averse and usually won't enact a sea-change in law until there is a consensus behind it. And second because any change in law without a time-built consensus would be resisted and be ultimately ineffective in its aims. (This tends to be true both in demoncracies and in well-managed autocracies).
The lagging indicator affect also has the secondary affect of creating civic heroes. While only injustice could give relevance to the lives of Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Thurgood Marshall and Dorothy Day, etc; their struggle creates an ethic of leadership that guides future generations against the injustices of their day.
A snowball affect with regard to Mark Lance has occurred. Posters are so eager to hate the man, that they respond angrily to anything he writes no matter how essentially non-partisan and uncontreversial.
Forcefully Disagree. Speak out against misformed ideas. But Dont Hate your adversaries.
Apr 27 2008 at 12:30 a.m.
Actually, with regard to minimum wage laws, one of the justices did just "change his mind" in the face of a threat from FDR. This was the famous "switch in time that saved nine" in the West Coast Hotel decision. The Great Depression may also have been a massive motivating factor in this change. An attempt to spur on the economy by forcing employers to pay a minimum wage is a nice start to fixing a poverty crisis, although a World War here and there also helps. Also, the regulation of the eight-hour day, at least with regard to women, was a very paternalistic move that was not caused by agitation of the government by the masses. The Supreme Court, in Muller v. Oregon, relying briefs from medical professionals, said that women's hours must be regulated for the good of the nation so that they could remain healthy and bear vigorous offspring. While some reform is tied to activists' struggles, some reform has much darker roots. It is naive to think that the powerless acting as a group are capable of making the differences that only the powerful can. This is a sad reality, but it is reality.
Apr 27 2008 at 3:24 a.m.
Hmmm ... lots of legal experts here. 3 non-consensus revolutionary judges off the tippy-top of my head.
Traynor, mid-20th, product liability: sea change
Cardozo, early-20th, contract interpretation, negligence liability: sea change
Warren, mid-20th, civil rights: sea change.
Theory - too blunt. Go back to the workshop. Good ideas. Not thought-out.
Risk averse: I wish people would stop using this unless they really understood what it meant. It is a term of art.
Proclamations: Thanks but not thanks. Just slog into the debate and don't tell posters how to behave.
kthnxbye
Apr 27 2008 at 11:58 a.m.
The last post made no sense to me at all. I gather it is someone who thinks s/he knows more than everyone else here about everything, but what actual point is being made is really unclear. (btw, the use of "risk averse" was perfectly reasonable. And yes, having published articles on decision theory, I think I understand what it means as a term of art.)
As for LH, one can always focus myopically on the detailed micro-structure of the interactions of the powerful. One can look at who talked to whom, made which deals, voted which way, etc. all the while utterly ignoring the massive tide of social, economic, political, and moral pressure that has been built up by ordinary people organizing over decades. This post takes that approach to a particularly hyperbolic extreme -- union organizing for the 8 hour day, bah!, it was a court brief from medical professionals. (Wish the Haymarket martyrs had known that was all it took.)
In the end, LH, you offer simply a counsel of despair and passivity. People can't do anything; people are impotent. Just sit back and let your rulers do things for you, or to you, or whatever they want. You can announce that this is reality, but whether it is depends upon whether people believe you.
More practical advise for any students still reading this: take courses in labor history (Joe McCartin, for example) and history of radical movements (Maurice Jackson, eg), and in social movements (several folks in sociology.) And read. After you read Zinn, I'll be happy to suggest other things. And never buy the big lie that you are powerless.
Mark Lance
Apr 27 2008 at 6:31 p.m.
It's not that we hate Mark Lance....he is obviously qualified, since Georgetown hired him. It's just the content of his work, which is littered and blanketed with myopic statements on the history of this nation.
If anything, his ongoing wrath and rage are a reason to take the HOYA independent, to avoid printing such biased commentary like this in our student media. He shouldn't be printing in the student newspaper to begin with. That's why they have lofty Philosophy journals for this kind of crap.
Apr 27 2008 at 6:42 p.m.
This newspaper is turning into a soap box for Mark Lance.
Apr 28 2008 at 5:00 a.m.
Professor Lance's commentary is just plain arrogant...our tuition pays for an individual with a condescending attitude who has an ego larger than the entire campus? Where was tolerance for others' viewpoints, with the below commentary (submitted by Lance himself)
Case in point:
Lance: "The last post made no sense to me at all. I gather it is someone who thinks s/he knows more than everyone else here about everything, but what actual point is being made is really unclear. (btw, the use of "risk averse" was perfectly reasonable. And yes, having published articles on decision theory, I think I understand what it means as a term of art.)"
Comments like "And yes, having published articles on decision theory, I think I understand what it means as a term of art," Mark, do you need to stoop that low to quash any student feedback in the STUDENT paper on your article?
Apr 28 2008 at 11:25 a.m.
Hoya300:
"stoop that low" "Quash student feedback"? What are you talking about? The person announced that a previous poster didn't know what he was talking about and was misusing a term. s/he (and of course you don't know that it was a student) arrogantly announced that "risk averse" was a term of art without giving any explanation of what was wrong with the usage. I simply said that I thought the original poster was correct in his/her usage, and since the challenge had been in the form of someone claiming special authority I noted that I have some background in the technical use of the term.
I have spent an extraordinary amount of time on this forum responding to comments -- student and otherwise. Whenever anyone has asked a question, or made an argument, I have responded patiently and respectfully. When they have made arrogant pronouncements without argument, I have pointed out that they are doing so, but have never responded in kind. When they have written strings of abuse and name-calling, I have also pointed this out and occasionally been a bit testy. Given the volume of abusive email and posts, I think I've done a pretty good, not perfect, job of keeping my temper.
If you can explain to me what the argument is in the post I said makes no sense to me -- if you can tell me what the person is claiming in their very insulting dismissal of other posters -- I'll be happy to learn from you. But heavens -- my ego is larger than the entire campus because I call someone on their behavior of condescendingly lecturing other posters? I'm intolerant by pointing out patent intolerance? We're pretty far into Orwellian territory here.
As I've said over and over on this site, we'd get much further if you would make an effort to respond to what I said, address the points, make arguments, ask questions, etc. instead of deflecting the issue with character attacks.
Mark Lance
Apr 28 2008 at 2:01 p.m.
Professor Lance:
Thank you so much for your contribution to The Hoya this year. I have never taken your class and we have never met, but for the past several months I have read your pieces and all of the commentary.
We don't agree on much, but your pieces constantly made me evaluate my own believes and predispositions and consider alternatives to the way of the world.
The new forum afforded by the blog-styled Hoya-online has opened a new avenue for forming the whole person at Georgetown. So far, one professor has truly taken advantage of it by taking the hundreds of hours neccessary to form propositions in articles, read student, alumni, and crack-pot responses, and weather the constant assaults on his own character. This contribution is so far beyond the requirements of professorship that the university owes you a great debt.
I'm proud to have graduated from a University where these types of discussion proceed not from grade-incentivized classes, but from the sheer love of the exchange.
Have a great summer Professor Lance. I hope you take a column again next year so that the exchange may continue.
Finally, any chance of a Lance-Shall SJ point-counterpoint series?
Regards,
Saxon Gillis
(One final caveat, there are actually several professors who ahve taken the time to contribute to the Hoya among them Fr. Maher, Fr. Steck, Fr. Shall, and others. My point is limited to the contribution to the blog-styled exchange in which Lance has engaged in for the past semester.)
Apr 28 2008 at 3:03 p.m.
Thanks Saxon. Apart from the crack-pot responses (which were expected but not really hoped for) this is exactly what I hoped would happen as a result of the column. My goal, as I said at the first one, was to provoke and make people think. That's not to say that I don't believe what I wrote -- I certainly do -- but the goal of generating serious non-class debate was at least as important.
I appreciate also your thoughtful disagreements.
As for the future, that is totally up to the editors of the Hoya. They asked me to write for this semester. It will be a new crew next year, I assume, and so up to them whether anything like this continues. I'd certainly be happy to write in whatever context, including a more point-counterpoint version, but I would suggest that on this or whatever else you'd like to see in the Hoya you lobby them directly. I've found the editors to be pretty open to suggestions.
And now, back to reading all those senior theses, exams, etc.
Good summer everyone.
Mark Lance
Apr 28 2008 at 3:05 p.m.
Lance:
Hi. It's me. The arrogant poster.
Let me elaborate for your comprehension:
Point 1: The statement
"law is a lagging indicator of the people's intent. First because legislators and judges are risk averse and usually won't enact a sea-change in law until there is a consensus behind it. And second because any change in law without a time-built consensus would be resisted and be ultimately ineffective in its aims. (This tends to be true both in demoncracies and in well-managed autocracies"
Was factually incorrect. I quickly cited 3 examples of judges who, in different time periods and different areas of the law, intiated "sea-changes" quite against the prevailing popular will at the time (to whatever extent there was one - some of these issues were more arcana than anything else outside the leagl community).
It just was wrong. I know, I know: no one is wrong these days. But this was.
Point 2:
I doubt you really do understand what risk averse means. Even if you do (again, doubtful) I doubt most people on this board do. People think 'risk averse' means 'I don't like to do risky things' which is true but only in the sense that 'Einstein established that the movement of massive objections through space alters the gravity of the local-area' is true, meaning a blunt, rough-hewn, semi-incorrect proxy understanding.
Your touting of your decision making background doesn't alter my estimation. Congratulations - you probably know what R^2 stands for too ... at least roughly!
You have to, at a minimum, be able to do significant optimization via the method of Lagran. to understand risk aversion. You have to be able to actually operate with principles from neumann-morgenstern. you have to understand what kuhn-tucker means. Do you?
Point 3:
"Forcefully Disagree. Speak out against misformed ideas. But Dont Hate your adversaries."
I actually wouldn't disagree much with this. But it's sacchrine. And uninvited. And unwelcome. The best thing people can do on a message board is write their thoughts, say their piece, respond or move on. No one wants an angel writing epistles to everyone in the blogworld. It's cloying.
Point 4:
Why are we even discussing this? Why did you get involved in something that was clearly beyond your purview?
Point 5:
"Comments like "And yes, having published articles on decision theory, I think I understand what it means as a term of art," Mark, do you need to stoop that low to quash any student feedback in the STUDENT paper on your article?"
This is an apt comment. Although I wouldn't count students out so quickly.
Point 6:
kthnxbye
This is my way of indicating my distaste for inferior discourse that gets bandied about in so much of life, your op-eds and comment sections included. It grows wearying. It's probably wrong of me to respond with such little restraint and such brazen impatience. But we all have our days.
But please! Write an article about decision making for me! Talk to me about akrasia and do some backwards tree induction! Yee-hah!
Apr 28 2008 at 3:05 p.m.
Lance:
Hi. It's me. The arrogant poster.
Let me elaborate for your comprehension:
Point 1: The statement
"law is a lagging indicator of the people's intent. First because legislators and judges are risk averse and usually won't enact a sea-change in law until there is a consensus behind it. And second because any change in law without a time-built consensus would be resisted and be ultimately ineffective in its aims. (This tends to be true both in demoncracies and in well-managed autocracies"
Was factually incorrect. I quickly cited 3 examples of judges who, in different time periods and different areas of the law, intiated "sea-changes" quite against the prevailing popular will at the time (to whatever extent there was one - some of these issues were more arcana than anything else outside the leagl community).
It just was wrong. I know, I know: no one is wrong these days. But this was.
Point 2:
I doubt you really do understand what risk averse means. Even if you do (again, doubtful) I doubt most people on this board do. People think 'risk averse' means 'I don't like to do risky things' which is true but only in the sense that 'Einstein established that the movement of massive objections through space alters the gravity of the local-area' is true, meaning a blunt, rough-hewn, semi-incorrect proxy understanding.
Your touting of your decision making background doesn't alter my estimation. Congratulations - you probably know what R^2 stands for too ... at least roughly!
You have to, at a minimum, be able to do significant optimization via the method of Lagran. to understand risk aversion. You have to be able to actually operate with principles from neumann-morgenstern. you have to understand what kuhn-tucker means. Do you?
Point 3:
"Forcefully Disagree. Speak out against misformed ideas. But Dont Hate your adversaries."
I actually wouldn't disagree much with this. But it's sacchrine. And uninvited. And unwelcome. The best thing people can do on a message board is write their thoughts, say their piece, respond or move on. No one wants an angel writing epistles to everyone in the blogworld. It's cloying.
Point 4:
Why are we even discussing this? Why did you get involved in something that was clearly beyond your purview?
Point 5:
"Comments like "And yes, having published articles on decision theory, I think I understand what it means as a term of art," Mark, do you need to stoop that low to quash any student feedback in the STUDENT paper on your article?"
This is an apt comment. Although I wouldn't count students out so quickly.
Point 6:
kthnxbye
This is my way of indicating my distaste for inferior discourse that gets bandied about in so much of life, your op-eds and comment sections included. It grows wearying. It's probably wrong of me to respond with such little restraint and such brazen impatience. But we all have our days.
But please! Write an article about decision making for me! Talk to me about akrasia and do some backwards tree induction! Yee-hah!
Apr 28 2008 at 3:05 p.m.
Lance:
Hi. It's me. The arrogant poster.
Let me elaborate for your comprehension:
Point 1: The statement
"law is a lagging indicator of the people's intent. First because legislators and judges are risk averse and usually won't enact a sea-change in law until there is a consensus behind it. And second because any change in law without a time-built consensus would be resisted and be ultimately ineffective in its aims. (This tends to be true both in demoncracies and in well-managed autocracies"
Was factually incorrect. I quickly cited 3 examples of judges who, in different time periods and different areas of the law, intiated "sea-changes" quite against the prevailing popular will at the time (to whatever extent there was one - some of these issues were more arcana than anything else outside the leagl community).
It just was wrong. I know, I know: no one is wrong these days. But this was.
Point 2:
I doubt you really do understand what risk averse means. Even if you do (again, doubtful) I doubt most people on this board do. People think 'risk averse' means 'I don't like to do risky things' which is true but only in the sense that 'Einstein established that the movement of massive objections through space alters the gravity of the local-area' is true, meaning a blunt, rough-hewn, semi-incorrect proxy understanding.
Your touting of your decision making background doesn't alter my estimation. Congratulations - you probably know what R^2 stands for too ... at least roughly!
You have to, at a minimum, be able to do significant optimization via the method of Lagran. to understand risk aversion. You have to be able to actually operate with principles from neumann-morgenstern. you have to understand what kuhn-tucker means. Do you?
Point 3:
"Forcefully Disagree. Speak out against misformed ideas. But Dont Hate your adversaries."
I actually wouldn't disagree much with this. But it's sacchrine. And uninvited. And unwelcome. The best thing people can do on a message board is write their thoughts, say their piece, respond or move on. No one wants an angel writing epistles to everyone in the blogworld. It's cloying.
Point 4:
Why are we even discussing this? Why did you get involved in something that was clearly beyond your purview?
Point 5:
"Comments like "And yes, having published articles on decision theory, I think I understand what it means as a term of art," Mark, do you need to stoop that low to quash any student feedback in the STUDENT paper on your article?"
This is an apt comment. Although I wouldn't count students out so quickly.
Point 6:
kthnxbye
This is my way of indicating my distaste for inferior discourse that gets bandied about in so much of life, your op-eds and comment sections included. It grows wearying. It's probably wrong of me to respond with such little restraint and such brazen impatience. But we all have our days.
But please! Write an article about decision making for me! Talk to me about akrasia and do some backwards tree induction! Yee-hah!
Apr 28 2008 at 3:05 p.m.
Wow - that was supposed to post once not thrice.
Apr 28 2008 at 3:59 p.m.
Dear I go to Cooley/Arrogant Poster:
First off, congrat on getting into Cooley. Fine Law school. A bright future surely awaits you. Please let me know how it goes.
With regard to your post, I apprecaite the time you took to explain your initial purile response. I conceed as a matter of course that both you and Lance may be better versed in economic and game theory jargon than I am. If you say I misused the term "risk averse" because I have never read neumann-morgenstern, then perhaps you correctly note that my usage doesnt square with theirs. My usage does square neatly with the layman's use of the term which adequaltly communicated my point. Before you reach 2L at Cooley you may want to read up on Judge Posner's feelings on the use of Jargon.
With regard to the three jurist that you claim initiated sea-changes against the tide of public opinion -- your only half right. Cardozo and Traynor's work in tort law may have been controversial among lawyers, but they were not controversial among the populace at large. They were welcome and overdue changes that benefited the general public at the expense of minority stakeholders. If this were not the case, MacPherson v. Buick and Escola v. Coca Cola would surely be relegated to the waist-bin of ignored precedents. Indeed both decisions were at the state level. They bound few other judges except in the sense that they articulated a consenus growing in the populace.
The Warren court for sure had controversial descisions, but they were not controversial because they lacked a pre-established ground-swell of support. They were controversial because the segment of the population that opposed their affect did so so vehemently and violently. Courageous as the Warren Court was, it still lagged Northern liberal sympathies by decades and Southern black activism by years.
Even conceeding that those three justices initiated changes contrary to a developing consensus (which I need not conceed), these woubd be only exceptions that prove the rule -- that in order to preserve legitimacy, government policy must be a lagging indicator of public consensus.
Good luck on finals, Cooley. I hope our discussion wasn't to wearing on your esteemed intelect.
Regards,
Saxon Gillis
Apr 28 2008 at 4:08 p.m.
K:
So you think citing 3 cases from history shows a statistical claim "usually" "tends to be" to be false? And then you admit that "some of these issues" -- some of the three -- weren't actually against the popular will as you claimed.
point 2 doesn't really merit comment. It is a priori denunciation of my understanding. Absolutely a priori since your condescending remarks are about someone else's post. But beyond that, the suggestion that the poster must know details of economic theory to correctly use the notion of risk aversion is absurd. It is like saying that someone can't correctly claim that it must take light a good while to get to us from another galaxy unless they know the details of quantum gravity. You may know more about decision theory than I do. I work more in logic and foundations of math than decision theory. But it is hard to imagine anything more childish than trotting out technical terms to discredit someone who made a perfectly intelligible comment that did not -- as you actually admit -- misuse a technical term at all.
point 3: you are defending name calling, in response to someone other than me. Congratulations.
Point 4: more a priori abuse.
Point 5: You have made it quite clear that my comment was appropriate.
Point 6: So you feel some discomfort at posting abusive condescending nonsense without a shred of argument, but not really.
And you think I should write articles on decision theory in a newspaper. I'll be sure to take that suggestion under advisement.
At least you tied the unargued hostility to concrete points this time. So it was possible to understand what you were making fun of. But making fun and unargued denunciation it still is.
As I've said before in contexts like these, I'm quite finished with this conversation. If anyone has anything serious to contribute, I will try to respond.
Mark Lance
Apr 29 2008 at 7:14 a.m.
Not-so-Cool-ey:
This adds little to what has been aptly said by Lance, but you really are a klutz with nothing to say; also an insecure snob with a shabbily disguised inferiority complex.
What else can make it seem worthwhile to weigh into an otherwise largely decent conversation only to indulge the childish urge to soil oneself in a fit of insolence and smugly await a big reaction?
Since you have so degraded this discussion, I think all this deserves to be put plainly. And name-calling such as I am engaging in is perfectly appropriate when the target has done no better themselves.
Here's a *game-theoretic* model:
If this were a dance, you'd be the poor soul spending too much time in front of the water fountain and blaming it all on the kids who enjoy themselves because they were raised better. And because you're a bad, bad person who needs to grow up. And you're lame.
May 18 2008 at 6:31 p.m.
Ironically, Mr. Lance writes a self-congratulatory column on how action-packed he is, then fails to submit his bi-monthly column to The Hoya for a month straight.
Aug 12 2008 at 11:11 a.m.
Mother Jones is right. We must fight for the ones that are still living to offer them a better like, we must think of our kids! They won't be needing only zappos, but a good shelter!