Conservatives fight about who gets to captain the Titanic.
The only thing more amusing than re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic is fighting about who gets to be Captain. It’s so wonderful to see a bunch of Republicans acting just like Democrats!
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman
“I am not a witch.”
“I’m nothing you’ve heard.”
There’s something interesting going on here that I think both liberals and Democrats (of which I am both) ought to take seriously. There’s a substantial part of the Republican Party that prefers Todd Akin to Karl Rove, and they are frequently getting their way.
I propose that liberals can learn two things from this:
-To be effectual in democratic politics, you need to assemble voting majorities. If the Democratic Party doesn’t agree with your views, but it’s closer than the Republicans, then you work to bring the Democrats - again, the people most sympathetic to your outlook - around to your views and your candidates.
-As a liberal, you don’t shy away from intra-party conflict with Democrats. The more extreme elements on the Right want to collapse the American economy and foster tolerance for rapists. Now that’s a pretty tough sell, but they’ve made real progress, and they’ve done it by being willing to challenge their fellow Republicans in primaries.