At its core, the Wakes are building a movement that is weakening the Left and rendering it impotent in the face of its true theocracy and fascist enemies. It pits male against female, straight and cis-gender against queer, Black against white, and working class against intelligentsia. It denigrates science with various offshoots of the meaningless pseudoscience known as “critical theory” – a field so serious that one of its leading journals published a (fabricated) paper purporting to account for an endless rape culture…in a dog park.[1] Above all, however, Woke teaches young and idealistic students that they should take refuge in “safe spaces” rather than learn to overcome their fears…and their enemies.
As if our enemies invented this thing.
[1] Lindsay, James, Peter Boghassian, and Helen Pluckrose. “Studies in Academic Complaints and Academic Corruption.” Areo10 February 2018.
This is from Jonathan Lipow, Progressive Public Policy2023.
Jonathan is a professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is in a different part of the university than I was, but we have been working together as colleagues for many years.
Jonathan is a progressive and he wants to talk to other progressives who he thinks, rightly, need to hear his economic message. Jonathan and I don’t agree on everything, of course. Remember that you are a developing person. But we agree on a few things.
In the next week or so, I’ll have more posts about the contents of his book.
Here’s another episode, with my brief comment, for now:
However, as we will see, logic and evidence strongly suggest that some policies currently popular among American leftists are indeed ridiculous, such as opposition to charter schools and nuclear power. Meanwhile, some of the policies most promoted by progressives — like the $15 minimum wage — aren’t foolproof, but overwhelming evidence suggests they don’t work and are a waste of time. [DRH note: I wish they were just a waste of time rather than a policy that makes it more difficult for young unskilled workers to get on the first rung of the economic ladder.] On the other hand, readers may be happy to know that the emotional support of progressives is universal health insurance. [DRH note: hmmm] and immigration policies [DRH note: yes] they are well supported by both logic and evidence.
More to follow.
Postscript: Here’s a post I made in 2016 about Jonathan’s previous book where he said nice things about me: he did it to argue that my liberal ideas won’t work in the world nearly as well as I thought they would.
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