The Story Behind ‘Epistemic Closure’
Posted by Ryan Dawkins
I have been wanting to write about the ongoing debate raging in the blogosphere regarding the idea of epistemic closure and the intellectual health of not only the political right, but the left as well. To my surprise, The New York Times actually outlined the basic contours of the debate pretty well yesterday. Rather than reinventing the wheel, here is what the Times had to say:
The phrase is being used as shorthand by some prominent conservatives for a kind of closed-mindedness in the movement, a development they see as debasing modern conservatism’s proud intellectual history. First used in this context by Julian Sanchez of the libertarian Cato Institute, the phrase “epistemic closure” has been ricocheting among conservative publications and blogs as a high-toned abbreviation for ideological intolerance and misinformation.
More on the GOP’s Double-Speak on Health Care Reform
Posted by Ryan Dawkins
I have been openly critical of the GOP in Congress over their continual and blatant demagoguery of health care reform over the last year, especially when many of the key ideas in the law originated from Republican themselves! In particular, I have pulled my hair out over their continued accusations that the new law amounts to a ‘government take over of the health care system’ and that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are pushing the country toward socialism.
Indeed, right before the law passed in March, I wrote on how the Republican health care plan that was offered as an alternatives to President Clinton’s plan in 1993 bore shocking similarities to the plan that was recently passed by the Democrats. So much so, that I referred to it as a smorgasbord of partisan hypocrisy.
David Frum's Tragedy
Posted by Ryan Dawkins
The Denver Post republished an article today by Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post. The article was about the recent firing of David Frum, a former speech writer for President George W. Bush, from the American Enterprise Institute, one of the premiere conservative think tanks in the country. Frum, who is most famous for his authorship of President Bush's 2002 'Axis of Evil' metaphor, "made clear, in a letter to AEI president Arthur Brooks, that his departure after seven years as a resident fellow at the conservative think tank was not voluntary."
Even though there was no suggestion that the firing was due to Frum's recent criticisms of the GOP's health care reform strategy, it came on the heels of a column he wrote on his website last Sunday. In the column, he wrote that with the passage of health care reform, Republicans and conservatives not only lost their most crushing defeat in four decades, but were also overly optimistic about their changes in the November mid-terms. More to the point, however, he wrote:
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