Comments on: Bob Johnson’s ideas http://arkansasnews.com/2009/01/11/bob-johnson%e2%80%99s-ideas/ Your Source For Everything Arkansas Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:03:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: norgi http://arkansasnews.com/2009/01/11/bob-johnson%e2%80%99s-ideas/comment-page-1/#comment-139 norgi Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:50:15 +0000 http://arkansasnews.com/?p=19855#comment-139 Equating higher education with something as negatively constructed as ambulance chasers is classic demagoguery. Not only did you not call it, you piled more on. In a state that's 49th and owned by "titans of industry" that Bob Johnson loves, it's not surprising that he would want to restrict the availability of coordination goods. Those are goods (like higher education) that are critical for any kind of power change.* People who are opposed to, powerless in and/or abused by the current system cannot bring about change with out them. In other words, we're okay with giving Arkansans enough education to work in a chicken plant or fix my sheetrock but we don't want them getting too heady else they might figure out that all our "right-to-work" and "anti-government" and "heaven/hell" rhetoric are tools we use to stay on top and keep them down. (Interesting that the example you and Willie Bob used cozily fit the concerns of the titans of the health industry who don't like watchdog types like lawyers either. It's like demagoguery on top of demagoguery. Why not, no one calls it?) Free (and unbiased) press that relentlessly exposes the demagogue is another coordination good that would be nice to have in Arkansas as well. *see de Mesquita and Downs--search it at Foreign Affairs dot org Equating higher education with something as negatively constructed as ambulance chasers is classic demagoguery.

Not only did you not call it, you piled more on.

In a state that’s 49th and owned by “titans of industry” that Bob Johnson loves, it’s not surprising that he would want to restrict the availability of coordination goods. Those are goods (like higher education) that are critical for any kind of power change.* People who are opposed to, powerless in and/or abused by the current system cannot bring about change with out them.

In other words, we’re okay with giving Arkansans enough education to work in a chicken plant or fix my sheetrock but we don’t want them getting too heady else they might figure out that all our “right-to-work” and “anti-government” and “heaven/hell” rhetoric are tools we use to stay on top and keep them down.

(Interesting that the example you and Willie Bob used cozily fit the concerns of the titans of the health industry who don’t like watchdog types like lawyers either. It’s like demagoguery on top of demagoguery. Why not, no one calls it?)

Free (and unbiased) press that relentlessly exposes the demagogue is another coordination good that would be nice to have in Arkansas as well.

*see de Mesquita and Downs–search it at Foreign Affairs dot org

]]> By: The Death Star twinkles | Arkansas News http://arkansasnews.com/2009/01/11/bob-johnson%e2%80%99s-ideas/comment-page-1/#comment-138 The Death Star twinkles | Arkansas News Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:17:42 +0000 http://arkansasnews.com/?p=19855#comment-138 [...] Brummett evaluates Sen. Bob Johnson’s outburst at a media conference last week and finds some good — not leaving two-year-college students out of the lottery funding formula (which nobody has proposed to do) — and some bad, specifically that zoo nonsense. In advocating the end of the LR Zoo as we know it, Johnson is merely carrying water for UAMS’ manifest parking destiny. [...] [...] Brummett evaluates Sen. Bob Johnson’s outburst at a media conference last week and finds some good — not leaving two-year-college students out of the lottery funding formula (which nobody has proposed to do) — and some bad, specifically that zoo nonsense. In advocating the end of the LR Zoo as we know it, Johnson is merely carrying water for UAMS’ manifest parking destiny. [...]

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