# NYT Twists Itself Into Knots -- Or, How Do Liberals Deal With Messy Democracy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 15, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208 "2009-04-15T19:21:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/61 "2009-04-16T02:08:42Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > Right, but private property existed before governments, de facto if not de jure. Government is not the sole provider of private sovereignty, so it doesn’t have monopoly power, but it behaves as though it does. Following my analogies with the bartender or whatever, there could come a point at which I said “your beer is too expensive”/“the price you want to protect my property is too high” and so “I’m going to brew my own”/“for the amount of money you want, I could hire my own private army and get even better assurance of my property rights than you’re offering, at a lower price.” But the government won’t let you opt out, which is where the coercion comes from. > > And realistically none of us probably want Mad Max (though if we had it, I’d probably try really hard to be one of the overlords), so we accept some degree of coercion. But it’s coercion in a way my beer transaction is not, no question, and therefore needs to be monitored more closely. I don’t argue that that’s a form of coercion, but your solution doesn’t remove coercion from it, it just gives a smaller group of people the ability to coerce a larger group. As it stands now, the wealthy are somewhat at the mercies of the poor, although this is to a large extent mitigated by the fact that the wealthy have a lot of money, which conveys significant power in and of itself. You propose a system in which that same wealthy elite has the entire rest of the population at their mercy, who will have _no_ recourse to counter that power. Aside from any concept of fairness that this may violate (and it violates a fair number of them), an underclass that is both economically and politically disenfranchised is ripe for radicalization, as can be seen throughout the Middle East. Particularly, as it happens, in Afghanistan. Which is precisely why you won’t see the NYT, or any other liberal organization, bemoan the existence of democracy in Afghanistan. Because whatever social ills befall the country at the moment, even if they’re currently enacted through the democratic process, it is that same democratic process that offers the best chance of eventually reversing those ills. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/62 "2009-04-16T02:14:18Z")
With regards to the OP, liberals struggle with paradoxes. They defend foreign or minority cultures, but these cultures are often highly conservative in their treatment of women and sexual issues. So what to do? But the situation in Afghanistan scarcely involves liberals, so on an immediate level it’s kind of a moot point. As for taxation, it’s worth pointing out that tax rates on the top earners were much, much higher in the 50s, 60s, and 70s than they are ever likely to be under Obama. So, **Huera88** , you should try to avoid giving the impression that you were born yesterday. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/63 "2009-04-16T02:16:17Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > A representative democracy coupled with a poll tax or landownership requirement, so that those voting on how to distribute money or power are at least minimally invested in the body doing so. Then those with economic power would also have a legal monopoly on political power. See the problem there? I assure you everybody else does. And what’s this about “landownership”?! It’s like you’re channelling the Duke of Wellington. A system where slob with a quarter-acre house could vote, and a millionaire with multiple graduate degrees but no real estate would be just as disfranchised as an illiterate hobo? What’s the thinking behind **that?!** ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/64 "2009-04-16T03:47:57Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > A representative democracy coupled with a poll tax or landownership requirement, so that those voting on how to distribute money or power are at least minimally invested in the body doing so. I totally disagree. Everybody who falls under the jurisdiction of a government should have equal say in that government. Focusing political power on a subset of citizenry leads to tyranny. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/65 "2009-04-16T04:07:44Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > **Huerta88** , you’re simply wrong if you think the NYT has never lamented the result of domestic democratic decision-making that was overly influenced by uneducated masses. Ever heard of DOMA? The Patriot Act? Did you miss the NYT criticism of those? I didn’t have to look very far to find the NYT being [critical](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/24/opinion/24sat2.html?scp=3&sq=defense%20of%20marriage%20act%20editorial&st=cse) of democratic majorities: Your OP’s point seems to be that democracies can make bad decisions. How do you get from that premise, with which I’m pretty sure no one disagrees including Manhattan cocktail party-goers, to the conclusion that poor people should be disenfranchised. Can’t you see that you’re skipping a few steps in the argument? Is your understanding of democracy that it is a system of achieving objectively correct policy outcomes? You don’t think there’s any justice in giving people control over their own governance? Because you and **sqweels** make some good complementary points, and because my OP contained a throwaway line or two: Let me pose a variant of this question: Why would the NYT publish this article clearly displeased with the results of cultural diversity and democracy when the cd&d in question are of the Afghani or Pentecostal or redneck variety and threaten the special-pleading interests of a constituency favored by the NYT (the ladies, the homosexuals, the black folk), but have nothing but praise for the seemingly-limitless and not-to-be-denied bounties of cd&d when they are applied (in the setting of ACORN voters, illegal aliens I mean undocumented victims, heroic practitioners of homosexual intercourse) in the U.S. or to causes that Manhattan cocktail habitues (if not denizens of benighted Lubbock or unspeakable Vatican City) find fashionable, worthy, self-edifying? As the question answers itself (“the fundamental principled results all depends on whose ox is being gored”), I could vote for the thread to close, not be transferred (I’ve stated my plan to keep this GD-toned, and I have nothing to complain of anyone else’s conduct or really even tone, even though they’re wrong . . . .). H. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/66 "2009-04-16T04:24:59Z")
Why would the NYT publish editorials when they are displeased with the results of democratic decision-making, but have nothing but praise for the results they do like? You’re right that the question answers itself, but it isn’t clear to me what you think the answer proves. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/67 "2009-04-16T05:48:21Z")
Did you just seriously ask, “Why would the NYT be pleased with results they approve of, and displeased by results they disapprove of?” ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/68 "2009-04-16T05:54:26Z")
Are you asking me or him? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/69 "2009-04-16T10:30:34Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > The sophomore-year “all property is theft” trope always broke down for me because it denies the existence of an arms length transaction between willing sellers and interested buyers negotiating a mutually-satisfactory price for an exchange of goods and services. My local barmaid has over the past X years been enriched to the tune of a few hundred dollars in tips. She’s not rich, but she’s paying her way through college, whereupon she may be in a position to supply other, more value-added services. Her boss, the owner, has made thousands in profits off of me. He **is** rich, but he’s stolen nothing from me; he put together a good menu, a pleasant bar, and an awesome beer selection, and I found his prices fair. His former cook has opened a place of his own one block over. Was the owner stealing from him when he paid him a low wage as a newly-immigrated busboy, a higher wage as a line cook, and a high enough wage as head cook that he now is a capital owner himself? Or was he cheating the owner by taking some portion of the owner’s wealth, transferred from me, in the form of wages? It’s ridiculous to think any of these transactions are coercive in the way that government-mandated, non-consensual income redistribution is. Was your local bar created out of Chaos-stuff, _ex nihilo_? If not, _at some point_ there has been coercion, just in isolating the property from the commons, if not outright conquest in the past. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/70 "2009-04-16T10:40:52Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > Right, but private property existed before governments, de facto if not de jure. Cite? Referring to real property(land), of course, not personal property(other stuff), which is usually the case in property discussions. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/71 "2009-04-16T10:59:27Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > And secondly, the NYT would, in the context of maximizing the number of ex-felons, or dubiously-documented citizens, or the illiterate or non-English-speaking persons, who could, say, vote in an American election, undoubtedly err on the side of extolling the glories of democracy, allowing anyone and everyone to vote, without drawing a single object lesson from what happens in a situation that, mutatis mutandis, is analogous (arguably less educated and less responsible voters voting on policies they don’t understand, or for outcomes that don’t serve the greater good). YMMV on the greater good but my whole point here is that there will never be an admission by the NYT, in the context of domestic politics, that the greater good might have been best served if pandering to the rabble weren’t a necessity for the leadership, as they clearly feel (and lament) was the case in Pak/Afghanistan. Strawman much? Every political theorist worth his salt has recognized for at least two centuries that recognizing a right to self-rule and recognizing minority rights will lead to conflicts, because in a representative government there is always danger of the [tyranny of the majority](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority). People have a right to self-rule, but they don’t have a right to rule in a way that deprives segments of the population of their fundamental rights. This happens all the time in democracy, unfortunately, and it is right to decry it when it happens. > [@Huerta88](#): > > Because you and **sqweels** make some good complementary points, and because my OP contained a throwaway line or two: Let me pose a variant of this question: Why would the NYT publish this article clearly displeased with the results of cultural diversity and democracy when the cd&d in question are of the Afghani or Pentecostal or redneck variety and threaten the special-pleading interests of a constituency favored by the NYT (the ladies, the homosexuals, the black folk), but have nothing but praise for the seemingly-limitless and not-to-be-denied bounties of cd&d when they are applied (in the setting of ACORN voters, illegal aliens I mean undocumented victims, heroic practitioners of homosexual intercourse) in the U.S. or to causes that Manhattan cocktail habitues (if not denizens of benighted Lubbock or unspeakable Vatican City) find fashionable, worthy, self-edifying? As the question answers itself (“the fundamental principled results all depends on whose ox is being gored”), I could vote for the thread to close, not be transferred (I’ve stated my plan to keep this GD-toned, and I have nothing to complain of anyone else’s conduct or really even tone, even though they’re wrong . . . .). H. More strawman argumentation. I want you to repeat the following phrase: “Majority rules; minority rights.” Repeat it a few times. Maybe eventually you will come to understand it. When the majority rules in a way that deprives minorities of their rights (as in Afghanistan, as when a bunch of Christians decide to impose their morals on homosexuals in the US, etc.), it is exactly the tyranny of the majority warned against by de Tocqueville, Mill, and other defenders of democracy. Cultural difference and diversity is a red herring. (And no, being prevented from imprisoning homosexuals is not a violation of your cultural diversity. Remember: majority rules; minority rights. Do you understand the fundamental principles of liberal democracy yet, or do you need some more lessons?) Hopefully this gets moved to the Pit so we can be more honest with you. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/72 "2009-04-16T11:04:20Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > Right, but private property existed before governments, de facto if not de jure. I’m not sure this is correct, historically speaking. Can you give me an example of a society, past or present, that has private property but no government? ---
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/73 "2009-04-16T11:42:16Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > …allowing anyone and everyone to vote, without drawing a single object lesson from what happens in a situation that, mutatis mutandis, is analogous (arguably less educated and less responsible voters voting on policies they don’t understand, or for outcomes that don’t serve the greater good). YMMV on the greater good but … One of the things that the less affluent, less well educated citizens like to vote for is better public education for their children. So that in due course their children will become better able to understand public policy, and vote responsibly. Would you consider this a ‘greater good’? Would you consider excellent public education a liberal or a conservative policy? Do you think your preferred oligarchical democracy would spend a lot of ‘their’ money on first rate educations for the children of the disenfranchised poor? Personally, I think the best thing that can happen to the rich is that they be forced to spend a big chunk of their wealth on the common good. It’s a much better life being a moderately affluent European than a super-wealthy African, for instance, even if you do pay more tax. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/74 "2009-04-16T12:16:58Z")
Reading this thread, I find myself asking the most basic question, what the hell is the OP about? The NYT has an editorial that condemns making a law that allows for marital rape and allowing Taliban to flog a woman for declining a marriage proposal. Did I miss something? Those are still bad things aren’t they? How did this turn into a brainless rant about arugula eating liberals hating democracy? Is there a page 2 of the article that I missed? ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/75 "2009-04-16T12:20:46Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > Reading this thread, I find myself asking the most basic question, what the hell is the OP about? The NYT has an editorial that condemns making a law that allows for marital rape and allowing Taliban to flog a woman for declining a marriage proposal. Did I miss something? Those are still bad things aren’t they? How did this turn into a brainless rant about arugula eating liberals hating democracy? Is there a page 2 of the article that I missed? Oh, but don’t you see, teh libruls are for democracy, so when democracy produces an outcome they don’t like, they can’t complain. See? You don’t see? Here, put on these blinkers. Now do you see? Much better, right? ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/76 "2009-04-16T13:12:49Z")
> [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > Oh, but don’t you see, teh libruls are for democracy, so when democracy produces an outcome they don’t like, they can’t complain. See? You don’t see? Here, put on these blinkers. Now do you see? Much better, right? No, wait! You also have to see those very same libruls are using that redistribution of wealth thingy. And then using that redistributed wealth to provide free rides for all those undeserving non-producers out there. And doing that because they just don’t know enough about economics. And they’re greedy too, goes without saying. Unlike those good folks who actually have stuff already. But the NYT praises and accepts greed and stupidity, as long as it comes from those darlings of the libruls, the downtrodden masses. And so it follows that the NYT should be having some crisis of conscience, but isn’t (possibly because it is led by people who are deranged and not in touch with reality, as evidenced by the fact that they are after all libruls you know). But it should be having that crisis because the logical and inevitable chain of events and associations above is directly related to _the adoption of forms of Sharia law by a democratic process! In a Muslim country!_ Is this thread clear now? No, I didn’t think so either. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/77 "2009-04-16T13:25:31Z")
> [@Sandwich](#): > > One of the things that the less affluent, less well educated citizens like to vote for is better public education for their children. So that in due course their children will become better able to understand public policy, and vote responsibly. Would you consider this a ‘greater good’? Would you consider excellent public education a liberal or a conservative policy? Do you think your preferred oligarchical democracy would spend a lot of ‘their’ money on first rate educations for the children of the disenfranchised poor? > > Personally, I think the best thing that can happen to the rich is that they be forced to spend a big chunk of their wealth on the common good. It’s a much better life being a moderately affluent European than a super-wealthy African, for instance, even if you do pay more tax. As to your first proposition: cite? For instance, the LA rioters, or for that matter the Baptists convinced that Obama was a Muslim – show me some evidence that they have an abiding concern with making their children “better able to understand public policy.” Or, show me some evidence that, say, the amply-funded Washington D.C. public schools produce far superior outcomes to those provided by, say, the German public schools in the era of Bismarck, when the franchise was significantly narrower. Public education was the invention and pet project of moneyed elites, not of the poor. And if I had to live in Africa – I’d definitely want to be an oligarch, not subject to the whims of democracy. Why do you think so many educated professionals have fled South Africa? ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/78 "2009-04-16T14:25:44Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > Is this thread clear now? I think so. Now, as a good liberal, am I supposed to share my welfare check with blacks and homosexuals in the interest of cultural difference and diversity? Or pay the black to kill the homosexual in accordance with Sharia law? Or did I lose the thread of the argument again? ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/79 "2009-04-16T14:34:17Z")
> [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > I think so. Now, as a good liberal, am I supposed to share my welfare check with blacks and homosexuals in the interest of cultural difference and diversity? Or pay the black to kill the homosexual in accordance with Sharia law? Or did I lose the thread of the argument again? Hhhmmmm… As upwardly mobile, wanna-be rich folk, I don’t think we’re supposed to share. We wait for our government dominators to snatch our future riches from our hands through blatant over-taxation… While we read NYT? No, I’m lost again too. Damn. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2009, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208/80 "2009-04-16T15:03:57Z")
Thanks for the help guys, I think I finally got it figured out… No, wait … Damn, lost it again. Let me try this: :bangs head on wall repeatedly: BAM!! BAM!!! BAM!!! I think … I … finally … underssssssssssssssttttttaaaaaaaaannnnnn : passes out: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nyt-twists-itself-into-knots-or-how-do-liberals-deal-with-messy-democracy/493208.md?page=5)