Look, Douthat is a worthless tool who has been proven wrong about pretty much everything. I understand that TAPPED needs to engage with these tools, but a little more withering contempt, please. It's all he deserves.

Oh, and in case you didn't know, our president is black so it's not a stimulus bill, it's a "reparations" bill.

Um, thanks for introducing your own racism as an attempt by you to gain the moral high ground.

You can disagree with Kling and his analysis, but his analysis is consistent. It can be argued against without any need for you to claim it is racist.

So stop your own fucking racism. It's weak. It's lame. It's ad hominem. It's not an argument. It's simply your own issues shit out for the rest of us to read.

Kling's the one who said "reparations," moron.

Let's declare war on Germany, Italy and Japan. It got us out of the depression.

Kling said reparations Dilshit, but Serwer is the one who claims it must be racism to do so.

Kling however was using it in the context of World War I, Dilshit,

To the Democrats, the Bush tax cuts were a heinous evil, comparable to Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality in World War I. Now, they are demanding reparations, with hundreds of billions of dollars to be paid into teachers unions and other members of the coalition that won the election.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_reparations

But fucktards like Serwer wants us to forget all of history except for his pc uses. And so he claims without evidence that Kling is making it a race issue.

Serwer's interpretation was an ad hominem attack based not on anything Kling actually wrote, but on Serwer's insistence alone that Kling must be a racist for using the word reparations. It was evidence free. It ignored Kling's actual words and didn't explain why that was okay to do. It was only a slur intended as propaganda to give Serwer's argument some sort of moral claim to legitimacy. "Kling is a racist and so anyone that disagrees with Serwer, and agrees with Kling, is a racist or risks being called one."

That is not a form of argument. It's a form of bullying.

If Kling is a racist or closet racist, if Kling's words today are some sort of coded racism, then Serwer should be able to show evidence and patterns of this in Kling's past writings.

He doesn't do that. He offers no proof or evidence that Kling is any sort of racist, except his claim today that we should ignore Kling's actual words and instead rely on Serwer's interpretation. He doesn't show past incidences of racist or coded racist use.

It's a shameful attack and should be unworthy of the American Prospect.

Gosh, anonymous, yer right. That's MUCH less inflammatory. Raising the spectre of Nazis and using the racially loaded word "reparations" together IS much more intellectually honest than pointing those words, obviously mere rhetorical flourishes, out.

Your real name, if it is not "anonymous", doesn't happen to rhyme with "King" does it?

My bad, not Nazis, but the Kaiser.

Geez, how far do you clowns have to go to make an argument anyway? WWI? The Rape of Belgium? What Dhimmicrat ever made that comparison?

Very good johnh, that's a much better argument against Kling than the one Serwer made. You can argue his analogy makes no sense or is godwinning.

Serwer doesn't do so. He mere threatens to call anyone who disagrees with him a racist.

Why am I anonymous? Not because I am Kling of course, but because Serwer's threats are real as you nicely demonstrate.

If I said I was Joe Blow, soon johnh, you and Serwer would be claiming I must either be Kling or a racist like Kling.

Stop your bullying. Both of you.

People can disagree with you without being racists. And you should not be so confident in your arguments as to imagine only Arnold Kling himself would write in opposition to you.

Stop bullying. It's not an argument. It's fucktardness at work.

Johnh, why aren't you giving us the courtesy of telling us your last name? Why should I think you're anyone but Adam Serwer?

Bullying? You are funny. And my last name is Howard, fucktard.

Belguim? WWI? Too much. Get a real argument. How about The Cross of Gold or something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Gold

As impressive as it is to read Ross Douthat assert that the pro- and anti-stimulus factions are equally empirical, I can't help but notice that sites like Daily Kos, TAP, and Matthew Yglesias of full of all kinds of charts and numbers and tables, while sites like Reason Online, National Review, and everyone else plumping Amy Shlaes' book are not.

Why is that?

Sure Adam, sure.

"Johnh, why aren't you giving us the courtesy of telling us your last name?"
Posted by Anonymous

That says it all.

Here's something that Amanda Marcotte said today that is probably true. It's a shame that it applies to Adam's argument.

Sexists don’t need evidence---stomping your feet is evidence

Note to anonymous who ain't bullied, yes, that was my point. How is "johnh" claiming "Anonymous" must be Kling and more credible/reputable than that Anonymous? Why would we think that Anonymous must be Kling and not also think that johnh might be Adam.

Anonymity is a good thing that our founders gave us and our courts protected, it's stupid and counterproductive to somehow try and shame the people who use it.

Liberals *used* to believe in free, anonymous, speech.

"Oh, and in case you didn't know, our president is black so it's not a stimulus bill, it's a "reparations" bill."
It's obvious he was referring to WWI and Versailles not America and race.

No argument with the rest of your points.

Anonymity is a good thing that our founders gave us

Hmm?

"Stop bullying"

Boo fucking hoo you patronizing piece of shit. Address the subject of the post and stop changing the subject.

Wow, I knew Arnold Kling was a clueless libertarian, but I had no idea he was also a clueless libertarian racist asshole.

You learn something every day.

"People who pay income taxes tend to vote Republican. People who live off taxes tend to vote Democratic. To the Democrats, the Bush tax cuts were a heinous evil, comparable to .....jello.
He could hve compared the tax cuts to anything, he had already made the point that was running around his brain with the word "reparations". The man could not be so ignorant as to not know it to be "racially charged". And
"Apparently, some other blogger decided that my reference to "reparations" was a reference to reparations from slavery and hence a reference to the color of President Obama's skin. That had not occurred to me."
Where has he been the last 2yrs, let alone the last 40.
Sometimes Phd's learn somethings about themselves later in life just like ordinary people do.

"People who pay income taxes tend to vote Republican. People who live off taxes tend to vote Democratic."

That, in itself, is such a ludicrously incorrect and unsupported (by data) statement that it effectively negates any conclusions that may be drawn by its author.

Look, Douthat is a worthless tool who has been proven wrong about pretty much everything. I understand that TAPPED needs to engage with these tools, but a little more withering contempt, please. It's all he deserves.

Just wanted to make sure that got seen again. JRoth nails it.

Don't feed the troll.

Both Mitch McConnell and George Will have put themselves in the untenable position of arguing that government spending prolonged the Great Depression but that government spending because of World War II ended the Great Depression.

Their free-market fairy narrative also breaks down over the WW II spending because private investment DECLINED.

I think Kling wanted to use the term "reparations" but then had to come up with some way to do that feasibly without referring to race.

Because the Belgium thing is just completely out of left field. I certainly don't recall the Dems ever invoking WW1 analogies during the Bush tax cut period.

Belgium analogies were not being tossed around the way, say, people compared Bush's invasion of Iraq to the US invading Spain (or South America, etc) after Pearl Harbor.

It's such a WTF analogy that I can only conclude that Kling was really thinking of racial reparations.

"Apparently, some other blogger decided that my reference to "reparations" was a reference to reparations from slavery and hence a reference to the color of President Obama's skin. That had not occurred to me."
Where has he been the last 2yrs, let alone the last 40.

Apparently many posters, because they have a life, have not followed the adventures of Arnold "That had not occurred to me" Kling.

It is very possible that he could not connect the dots. Or he was trying, real, real hard, to connect them in a subtle way that didn't work, because it was stupid.

He's been doing this for a long time. He needs a friend to review his work and explain that words, expressions, and ideas can have more than one meaning.

As I recall, WW2 caused a lot of demand destruction in Eurasia. The deficit financing of WW2 happened during civilian rationing of the U.S. population. The U.S. was a net creditor nation at the time, rather than a net debtor nation as now. I doubt that the fight against climate change is the moral equal of war. The French Revolution was caused by global cooling and bread riots rather than global warming, but why let facts get in the way of good democratic fairy tale.

Sorry, but "Reparations" is a racially charged word in our society today. Anyone who is in the field of writing about politics is well aware of this.

I promise you that if I had, even before this article, gone up to Kling and asked "What are your thoughts on reparations?" he wouldn't think I was asking him about WWI. He'd know exactly what we were talking about.

What's strange is that Kling could just have written about H.R. 40, the reparations bill now in the House, or about the apology bill passed in July which committed the House to reparations.

"the untenable position of arguing that government spending prolonged the Great Depression but that government spending because of World War II ended the Great Depression."

It helps if the spending is actually destroying your economic competition.

Mr. Serwer, this is a very sad display. To any reasonably-read individual, this was a transparent allusion to the reparations following the first world war (and to similar reparations in earlier wars, such as the Franco-Prussian War). You either completely lack a basic knowledge of world history, or are a dishonest man. If the former applies, I would suggest that a commentator in politics has a professional responsibility to self-educate in those areas in which s/he is uneducated, especially if one wishes to write on such topics. If the latter applies, you are a disgrace. I hope it is the first. This accusation you make is a very serious one, and you should neither make it from a point of ignorance nor malice.

Adam:
You state that it is "untenable" to argue that govt spending via the New Deal did not end the Great Depression, but that WW2 did.

Are you an economically/historically ignorant? Look at the basic unemployment numbers up through 1940.

In fact it was the massive government programs of industrially and militarily mobilizing for WW2 that ended unemployment. When we had a total of 14 million plus in our armed forces plus all the millions involved in heavy industry, etc, you get unemployment levels in the low single digits like we had during the war.

Alas, you must be blinded by ideological blinders.

How does one get a job such as yours with such tripe?

@Minos

No actually. It wasn't clear, and still isn't, that Kling was unaware that his use of the term reparations could be perceived as having racial undertones. I refer you to Mr. Serwer's new article:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=02&year=2009&base_name=a_clarification_1

@Keith

The only person with ideological blinders here is you. Serwer doesn't state that WW2 didn't end the Great Depression. However, anyone who isn't "historically ignorant" knows that the New Deal addressed and handled some of the most important and horrible effects of the Great Depression. It is only based on an employment dip that occurred during a 2 year period under FDR (the rest of the time under the New Deal it was on the rise according to all the numbers I've looked up, though I didn't do thorough research) that the argument that it somehow prolonged the depression has come into recent popularity.

Serwer's point is that "cut government spending" arguments seem always to really be about only cutting funding for organizations people don't ideologically agree with, not spending on the whole.

"With ten of years’experience in manufacturing of packaging machinery, the company mainly provide overwrapping machine