Coyne v. Wells on the 'alleged outbreak of civility' in Parliament

Coyne: Interesting that you mentioned Free Trade towards end and how we don’t talk about it because it seems normal now. Reading Postrel book at moment and she writes about 1970′s and how conservatives have won economic argument since that decade, thank god!

Free trade not controversial because many people are aware of alternatives to free market. 

Conservatives won economic debate and now we have to go after social policy and that’s why there is incivility across the land. Economic issues decided, battle for social policy now. 

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One Best Way:

“To see how dramatically attitudes have changed, consider the following 1974 news report on the Nixon administration’s plans to deal with energy shortages:

What happens when spring’s heavy driving begins depends on when word can be passed to U.S. refineries to start cutting back on production of heating oil and increasing output of gasoline. That decision, which could come at any time, is up to Federal Energy Office chief William E. Simon. 

One of his aides says:”It’s absolutely critical. If we decide to trigger the switch to gasoline and a long cold wave hits, heating-oil stocks might not last to spring. Heaven help us if we’re wrong.”

Meanwhile Simon and his staff are putting final touches on the Administration’s gasoline-rationing plan….

The number of gallons a driver would be allotted is to depend on where he lives. Those in rural areas, or in urban communities of less than 100,000 people, would get the most. Drivers in large cities with good mass transit would get the least.

Present estimates by the Federal Energy Office show a gasoline shortage of 1.2 million barrels a day, or about 20 per cent below normal demand. At that rate, officials say the maximum ration per driver would be 41 gallons a month. Residents of cities with fair mass-transit facilities would get 37 gallons, while those in areas with good mass transit would get 33 gallons.”

As a description of the U.S. government at work—under a Republican administration, no less—this perfectly routine news story reads like science fiction.

Only a quarter-century ago, however, it was an obvious truth that central bureaucrats could efficiently decide when refineries should switch from heating oil to gasoline and could wisely allocate gasoline supplies, carefully differentiating between drivers who needed thirty-seven gallons a month and those who required forty-one. Such technocratic manipulations were not limited to Soviet-style planning.

“The enemies of the market are…not the socialists,” wrote the economist John Kenneth Galbraith in his influential 1967 book, The New Industrial State.

Coyne: Interesting that you mentioned Free Trade towards end and how we don’t talk about it because it seems normal now. Reading Postrel book at moment and she writes about 1970′s and how conservatives have won economic argument since that decade, thank god!

Free trade not controversial because many people are aware of alternatives to free market. 

Conservatives won economic debate and now we have to go after social policy and that’s why there is incivility across the land. Economic issues decided, battle for social policy now. 

—————-
One Best Way:

“To see how dramatically attitudes have changed, consider the following 1974 news report on the Nixon administration’s plans to deal with energy shortages:

What happens when spring’s heavy driving begins depends on when word can be passed to U.S. refineries to start cutting back on production of heating oil and increasing output of gasoline. That decision, which could come at any time, is up to Federal Energy Office chief William E. Simon. 

One of his aides says:”It’s absolutely critical. If we decide to trigger the switch to gasoline and a long cold wave hits, heating-oil stocks might not last to spring. Heaven help us if we’re wrong.”

Meanwhile Simon and his staff are putting final touches on the Administration’s gasoline-rationing plan….

The number of gallons a driver would be allotted is to depend on where he lives. Those in rural areas, or in urban communities of less than 100,000 people, would get the most. Drivers in large cities with good mass transit would get the least.

Present estimates by the Federal Energy Office show a gasoline shortage of 1.2 million barrels a day, or about 20 per cent below normal demand. At that rate, officials say the maximum ration per driver would be 41 gallons a month. Residents of cities with fair mass-transit facilities would get 37 gallons, while those in areas with good mass transit would get 33 gallons.”

As a description of the U.S. government at work—under a Republican administration, no less—this perfectly routine news story reads like science fiction.

Only a quarter-century ago, however, it was an obvious truth that central bureaucrats could efficiently decide when refineries should switch from heating oil to gasoline and could wisely allocate gasoline supplies, carefully differentiating between drivers who needed thirty-seven gallons a month and those who required forty-one. Such technocratic manipulations were not limited to Soviet-style planning.

“The enemies of the market are…not the socialists,” wrote the economist John Kenneth Galbraith in his influential 1967 book, The New Industrial State.

Jack Layton wasn’t the only party leader to vow to have their entire caucus behave more civilly…

If the upcoming parliament is actually more civil – I do hope so – I’ll be disappointed if the major reason is the majority status:  this implies that folks can only be civil when it is easy, and that during the more challenging minority governments MPS just don’t have “what it takes” to be civil.

There are MPs who behave badly.  They make false accusations at the drop of a hat and then expect civil replies.   Two of the more outrageous offenders were re-elected (Wayne Easter and Pat Martin).  Why do many members of the media encourage their nonsense rather than shaming them?

If there’s anyone I would listen to talk politics for six hours, it’s you two.