1. It always amazes me that idiot conservatives cannot understand counterfactuals. If the unemployment rate without the stimulus would have been about 12%, if the entire financial sector melted down without aid, if a major auto company had disintegrated and dismissed thousands of employees in need of unemployment assistance... would that be BETTER in your mind.

Posted by: demo kid on August 30, 2010 10:31 PM

2. Well, OK, Demo Kid, let's play.

But first, I will need to know your muse.

Lewis? His earlier 1970's theory? If so, I warn you about the inherent problems with subtle context-sensitive distinctions.

Hitchcock? Woodward?

Let's see if Brad's big brain" (do you get that reference?) can handle a cogent retort.

Then again, conservatives like me are idiots who "cannot understand counterfactuals".

Ready...

Set....

GO!

Posted by: Chekflow on August 30, 2010 10:58 PM

3. For someone that can rattle off the names of philosophers, you're still quite dim.

But why don't you stop with the intellectual masturbation and answer relevant questions? Would you prefer 12% unemployment to 9%? Would you have risked the collapse of entire industries for the sake of ideological purity?

Posted by: demo kid on August 31, 2010 12:11 PM

4. Your 12% figure is based either in faith in your own estimates or faith in estimates from others with whom you agree. It is an unknown. The perfect weapon. The strawman. And your President, his administration and his enablers in the MSM just LOVE strawman arguments.

You're right. Without the bailouts and stimulus, et al, entire industries would have utterly collapsed.

We would have never recovered. We cannot survive without the Federal Government's help.

Thank you for telling me the truth and for such enlightenment.

I'm a changed man!

Whew....I feel so much better!

Posted by: Chekflow on August 31, 2010 12:50 PM

5. And another thing.........

I could have, well in advance, determined what your response to my first reply of your comment would be.

It's so typical.

Step one: Quote a term like "counterfactuals" (this establishes your liberal bona-fides of being intellectually superior to a dolt like me....a mere dullard "conservative", ignorant of well, everything and mired in the drek of a double-digit IQ")

Step two: When then challenged with a task of drafting an argument of the CBO's statements utilizing a counterfactual framework and naming your theorist, you die on the vine and resort to name calling:"loser",etc.

Step three: Continue to name call and pronounce your superior enlightenment.

And why?

Simple.

It's too hard. It's work. It requires something that I have seen rarely with folks like you on the other side:

Humility

Posted by: Chekflow on August 31, 2010 03:47 PM

6. @4-5: Humility? You've pretty much written an entire comment full of arrogant preening and little substance that doesn't answer my question at all. I could argue the finer points of Hume or the mathematical definitions of Pearl with you all day, but it doesn't get away from the complete lack of logic in your argument.

So mentally masturbate all over the place if you want... but don't think it proves whatever point you're trying to make.

Posted by: demo kid on August 31, 2010 11:30 PM

7. Oh, and name calling is chock full of "substance".

Right?

And let's face it, "counterfactural" theories are simply the manifestation of extraordinary "mental masturbation".

Do you really think that you & I will ever agree on the issue? No.

So....fine. You are right and I am wrong.

Feel better?

Posted by: Chekflow on September 1, 2010 01:54 PM

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