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Jowly Populism
Lou Dobbs isn't even worth getting angry over anymore. He's just funny. Here, he calls 500 economists "complete idiots" and "jackasses." Watch as his reporter struggles to wriggle out from having to agree with her boss that indeed he is is smarter than the 500 Ph.D.s who disagree with him. Tomorrow, watch as Dobbs strangles an illegal Mexican boy live on the air!
Related: Newt Gingrich nudges the immigration debate into a full-blown moral panic by citing one horrendous crime in New Jersey as proof that immigrants are "massacring American youth."
|8.15.07 @ 9:52AM|#
OK, as it turns out, Dobbs only said he was smarter than 50
economists, and said so over the course of 30 years.
You're right, at this point, he's just funny.
shecky|8.15.07 @ 9:53AM|#
You gotta love how well Dobbs overturns every "open borders" argument with clear, concise, devastating logic.
|8.15.07 @ 9:57AM|#
Gingrich said that the "war here at home" against illegal
immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan."
When does hyperbole become offensive? Gingrich is certainly not an
authority I would consult to address that question.
|8.15.07 @ 9:58AM|#
the "my opponents are fools. Fools! Oh, and they want to kill you and take your childrens' food and jobs, too." line of argument. It's always effective.
|8.15.07 @ 10:02AM|#
Well, the one economist who was talking about immigrants being no different from apples was really stretching. Apples don't require free health care and other social services, do they?
|8.15.07 @ 10:05AM|#
"Do you remember when we used to talk about something in this
country called free enterprise democracy? These jackasses have now
tried to supplant that with free market (sic). Or with free
trade."
Wow. Just wow. It's not that they give this guy his own TV show
that really surprises me, it's that they let him walk around
without a helmet on.
|8.15.07 @ 10:07AM|#
Larry Flynt should put out a bounty on someone who can present evidence of Dobbs eating at a Mexican restaurant.
|8.15.07 @ 10:08AM|#
Here, he calls 500 economists "complete idiots" and
"jackasses."
Obviously those 500 economists are much smarter than Friedman, and
much, much smarter than the 20,000+ economists who didn't sign
on.
|8.15.07 @ 10:34AM|#
I think we're fools to ignore the potential of Russet potatoes as an alternative energy source.
|8.15.07 @ 10:41AM|#
Wow. Just wow. It's not that they give this guy his own TV show that really surprises me, it's that they let him walk around without a helmet on.
I'm not sure a helmet would be enough. Maybe a set of waterwings,
too.
thoreau|8.15.07 @ 10:55AM|#
The subprime lending crisis can be solved by my plan to turn
Smurfs into gold.
Or you could just extract the colloidal silver that they ingested
and sell the silver...
|8.15.07 @ 10:56AM|#
I like how Lou Dobbs takes precisely one sentence from each
free-market economist. Why can't he let them speak for
themselves?
Dobbs is a coward.
|8.15.07 @ 10:57AM|#
Related: Newt Gingrich nudges the immigration debate into a
full-blown moral panic by citing one horrendous crime in New Jersey
as proof that immigrants are "massacring American
youth."
What a demagogue.
|8.15.07 @ 11:03AM|#
Gingrich said that the "war here at home" against illegal
immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan."
...
Gingrich said that the "war here at home" against illegal
immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan."
Apparently, that bore repeating.
Perhaps the author wanted to drive home the fact that Gingrich is a
hyperbolic blowhard?
|8.15.07 @ 11:04AM|#
Don't you just love the UNLIMITED IMMIGRATION flashing on the
screen during the story?
Just to drive the message home even more I guess.
lunchstealer|8.15.07 @ 11:05AM|#
MikeP, russets are not a very realistic alternative energy source. Clearly russets would fall apart too quickly. We need to use waxy potatoes like red pontiac or ruby crescent potatoes.
lunchstealer|8.15.07 @ 11:08AM|#
Oh, and the Smurfs were wiped out by a brutal US bombing campaign aimed, coincidentally, at illegal immigrants who default on their mortgages. However, although wild populations of Snorks have been crashing, farm-raised Snorks provide almost as much gold upon conversion as Smurfs.
|8.15.07 @ 11:21AM|#
Newt Gingrich has pissed away the last bit of his respectability. He's a total buffoon now.
|8.15.07 @ 11:28AM|#
farm-raised Snorks provide almost as much gold upon
conversion as Smurfs
lunchstealer, you are so naive I can hardly believe it.
lunchstealer|8.15.07 @ 11:39AM|#
In Gingrich's defense, he also wants to deport citizens who are suspected of crimse, not just immigrants.
|8.15.07 @ 11:45AM|#
Mr. F. Le Mur
Friedman's position on immigration is more a criticism of the
welfare state than a criticism of immgration.
As near as I can tell, Lou Dobbs would be against immigration if we
abolished every piece of public assistance in sight. In fact, since
his whole sctick seems to revolve around the "unfair" competition
on jobs, a country where the loss of one's job or the inability to
get one would result in one starving in the cold would have even
more of an incentive to keep out rivals.
|8.15.07 @ 11:48AM|#
In Gingrich's defense, he also wants to deport citizens who are suspected of crimse, not just immigrants.
(1) Wow, I wonder where to.
(2) Wow, this is "In Gingrich's defense..."? What would you say
against him? :)
|8.15.07 @ 11:50AM|#
In Gingrich's defense, he also wants to deport citizens who
are suspected of crimse, not just immigrants.
Hah, that reminds me when I watched Bill O'Reily once and he said
he was against the death penalty. So I thought, gee, maybe hes not
so bad after all.
Then he said we should have Gulags in Alaska in place of it. And I
was reminded what an asshat he is.
|8.15.07 @ 12:14PM|#
Gingrich said that the "war here at home" against illegal
immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan."
Not that Gingrich is a great guy, but that bit from the AJC article
is not a very accurate account of what he says in the column
being summarized...
There is a war here at home, and it is even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Far more Americans are being killed by violent, evil people here in America than in our official military "combat zones" overseas.
The truth is, all too many Americans are being killed. But what is so completely senseless is having the lives of three young, achieving students cut brutally short by someone who not only should not have been in the United States in the first place but also, after two previous arrests for violence, should not have been on the streets. Instead, the suspected killer should have been in jail awaiting trial, sentencing, prison and eventual deportation.
Most every mention of illegal immigrant in Gingrich's column is
preceded by 'felon', 'criminal', or 'violent'. In this sense he is
far superior to Lou Dobbs who is most scared by the adjectives
'hard-working' and 'employed'.
|8.15.07 @ 12:16PM|#
But aren't crime rates lower than they were in the 1970s, before hispanic immigrants started coming here in large amounts?
|8.15.07 @ 12:22PM|#
MikeP,
It's cleaner, but still pretty sleazy.
He goes from "More people die in America at the hands of violent,
evil people than in combat" to "three people were killed by an
illegal immigrant" which rhetorically lays all violent deaths in
America at the feet of one dude.
|8.15.07 @ 12:44PM|#
Obviously those 500 economists are much smarter than
Friedman, and much, much smarter than the 20,000+ economists who
didn't sign on.
Yeah, or the 299,999,500 people in the U.S. who didn't sign on
either! Please. Saying there are 20,000+ economists who didn't sign
on doesn't mean there are 20,000+ economists who disagree. To draw
that conclusion you would need 20,000+ economists to sign a
statement saying you shouldn't have open borders.
|8.15.07 @ 12:49PM|#
Gingrich has been waving bloody shirts like this for a long
time. It's nothing but a cheap political ploy.
When Susan Smith deliberately drove her SUV with her kids inside
into a lake, then climbed out, Newt Gingrich stood on the beach
where she went into the water and said that Democrats made this
happen. I don't think the poor kids had even left the morgue
yet.
S.A. Miller|8.15.07 @ 2:28PM|#
Friedman's position on immigration is more a criticism of
the welfare state than a criticism of immgration.
Which do you think will happen first? End of the Welfare state or
End of Illegal Immigration?
I would be all for unrestricted immigration if we get rid of the
welfare state. Problem is, I don't see the welfare state going
anywhere anytime soon.
|8.15.07 @ 2:45PM|#
Which do you think will happen first? End of the Welfare
state or End of Illegal Immigration?
By "End of Illegal Immigration" do you mean the end of laws against
free migration? Or do you mean that if the US buckles down enough,
then illegal immigration will end?
I would be all for unrestricted immigration if we get rid of
the welfare state.
Would you settle for even longer periods of time before immigrants
-- or even their citizen children -- can partake of the welfare
state?
The fact that a native person born of a native family receives
welfare should not be held against an immigrant who neither seeks
nor wants welfare for himself or his family.
Franklin Harris|8.15.07 @ 2:49PM|#
It's really funny how after Lou Dobbs failed at capitalism (his web site, Space.com, now under new management) he suddenly returned to CNN and went on an unending rant about how evil capitalism is.
|8.15.07 @ 3:25PM|#
Matthew,
"I think that the mother killing the two children in South
Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is
getting and how much we need to change things," he said. "The only
way you get change is to vote Republican."
Source
Swimmy|8.15.07 @ 6:11PM|#
I think this is an important point libertarians need to address:
Friedman's views on immigration were inconsistent and wrong, a
concession to popular politics born of his often ill-fitting
pragmatism. He never established a solid demarcation between his
immigration exception to freedom and others he would not
except--like, for instance, the drug war, which he opposed. Drug
use could arguably increase the size of the welfare state. Numerous
other activities could do the same thing, but Friedman would have
undoubtedly defended them in the name of freedom.
He failed to distinguish properly, making this an intellectually
inconsistent position. Immigration opponents like to use it as a
"gotcha" for economists, who often have too much reverence to
simply say Friedman was wrong, when that is, in fact, the proper
response--especially considering the completely workable nature of
laws that would deny temporary workers many state benefits.
|8.15.07 @ 8:38PM|#
Didn't read the thread yet, but did anyone notice the font says "War on the Middle Class" at about 4:24?
|8.16.07 @ 10:41AM|#
Lou Dobbs should invite Professor Tabbarok onto his show. That's something I would enjoy watching.
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