Krugman: Conservative Movement Allows 'No Room For Independent Thinking'

[kpete]

May 25, 2013, 10:53 am 79 Comments
The Closing of the Conservative Mind

............

The point is that there remains essentially no room for independent thinking within the conservative movement.

Could you say the same thing about liberals? I don’t think so. A few decades ago, you might have been able to draw up a somewhat similar list for the other side, involving things like the superiority of tradeable emission permits to command-and-control pollution regulation, the general undesirability of rent control, the benefits of airline deregulation, the absence of a usable long-run tradeoff between unemployment and inflation (and hence the impossibility of setting a 4 percent target for unemployment). But many liberals eventually conceded the point in each of these cases (maybe even conceded too far in a couple), without being declared no longer liberal. The point is that being a good liberal doesn’t require that you believe, or pretend to believe, lots of things that almost certainly aren’t true; being a good conservative does.



http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/the-closing-of-the-conservative-mind/

[babylonsister]

1. Boom! nt

[Curmudgeoness]

2. I had come to this conclusion a long time ago.

I have many discussions with liberals, and we are often not in agreement on issues although we do agree on most of the major issues. That is because we are liberals, not because someone told us that was how we should believe. I have also had probably more discussions with conservatives, and I am always able to guess exactly what they will say in answer to arguments. I have heard the same arguments from Rush and Glenn and all the talking heads....using the exact same words and phrases.

Pretty sad.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

4. Conservatives are all about recitation.....

I wish there was recital but they can't sing worth a shit.

[ErikJ]

3. Their Worship of St. Reagan defies that

Reagan gave amnesty to 6 million, was for stricter gun control and nuke disarmament, and many other tings the Cons would gasp at today.

[Blue Owl]

5. No thinking at all so far as I can tell

n/t

[byeya]

6. C'mon Prof Krugman, use it, the "F" word; I'm sure you're thinking it. They're Fascists.