Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Content, Not Quantity

14 Comments

I get really tired of arguments from quantity, from demagogues and excuse makers. For instance, when they say “we’ve turned over thousands of documents,” ignoring the fact that they’ve been redacted beyond recognition, and ignoring the key ones that haven’t been turned over. Similar idiocy occurs when the media rate a legislator by the number of bills they’ve passed, without regard to whether the resulting laws were smart or stupid, or when diplomats are praised for the number of treaties negotiated, regardless of their benefits or potential pain. Perhaps the most amusingly idiotic example is defenders of Hillary Clinton’s record as Secretary of State who, when pressed on her accomplishments, tell us how many millions of miles she flew.

Anyway, the latest such sophistry comes from defenders of Barack Obama’s lawlessness, when they say that George Bush “signed more executive orders.” But as with the examples above, the content matters:

A president who vows to unilaterally increase the minimum wage, reform the immigration system, make sweeping regulations on climate change — in addition to effectively rewriting his own health care law — isn’t leading from behind (as he has on foreign policy). He’s leading from behind an extra-constitutional arrogance.

Yes.

14 thoughts on “Content, Not Quantity”

  1. Is this why politicians brag about the quantity of money spent on a project?

    Jim probably thinks wasting trillions on our health care system is an improvement.

  2. “A president who vows to unilaterally”

    Some of these are executive decisions.

    Unless the supreme court rules they are unconstitutional or unlawful, they may be impolitic, but
    they may well be within the range of executive discretion.

    If you think the minimum wage is a problem, there is nothing that prevents the Congress from passing a law lowering the minimum wage back to $3.25/hour.

          1. If your guys can’t pass bills, well, its’ not tyranny, it’s just called being losers
            in an election.

    2. “but they may well be within the range of executive discretion.”

      Like those recess appointments to the NLRB? Sure some of Obama’s executive actions are legal but there are plenty that are just illegal dictates like ordering insurance companies to continue offering plans that were made illegal under Obamacare.

      1. if the President has taken an unlawful action, you are always welcome to sue him.
        get an injunction, or get damages from the US government.

  3. In many ways, this isn’t even an issue of quality vs. quantity so much as it is an issue concerning the sins of omission. If there is one thing that I hate, it is the deliberate omission of key facts in order to promote an argument. Unfortunately, the vast majority of journalism nowadays is based upon omission…

  4. There is another quantity argument that bothers me greatly. “Our Green initiative saved enough electricity to power 20,000 homes, the equivalent in fuel of removing 50,000 autos from the roads, and saved the planet by preventing the emissions of 1 million tons of CO2.”

    So . . .

    I mean first of all, one has to be a Believer in Climate Change and anthropomorphic CO2 being the problem, and so on. So Rand, humor me and let’s stipulate that. What bugs me is asking for stars in one’s saint’s crown by “saving” some numerically large quantity of whatever.

    So what? What if the gadjillion tons of pollution are only .01 percent of the need? What has one accomplished apart from innumerate bragging?

    OK, Rand you can stop humoring me now. What gets me is that folks raise the alarm that we are wrecking the planet with CO2, and then they go around believing that trading their SUV for a Prius, or even if everyone traded their SUV for a Prius is going to make a difference according to the dire forecast they are making, if you follow through with the percentages.

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