Regarding this:

There are surpassingly few empiricists about politics. And among those wide-minded few there are liberals, conservatives, libertarians, etc. The reason we do not converge on an evidence-based consensus is that we all started with different priors, and all use different methods of updating our beliefs, about which we also have different priors, which causes us to avail ourselves of certain kinds of evidence and not others, to trust certain kinds of studies and not others, to give credence to certain experts and not others, to mistrust certain methods of inquiry, and not others.

David Friedman made a similar point a few years ago in post the rest of which I disagree with (and it’s probably one of the only things he has every written that I find disagreeble). Here’s how he put it:

I have been arguing politics for a long time. In arguing with people on the left, I find it is very hard to come to an agreement on the assumed facts surrounding the situations we are judging. My imaginary capitalist has capital because he worked hard clearing part of the boundless forest while his employee to be was being lazy and living on what he could gather–so it is entirely just that the capitalist gets part of the output of his land and his employee’s labor. But the leftist doesn’t like that hypothetical. His imaginary capitalist inherited his capital from a father who stole it. I don’t like that hypothetical. I conclude that our moral intuitions are similar enough so that the same assumed facts push both of us in the same direction–and since we want to go in opposite directions we want so assume different facts.

(1) The evidence–empirical and scientific–bearing on the case is conflicting and complex, and thus hard to assess and evaluate.
(2) Even where we agree fully about the kinds of considerations that are relevant, we may disagree about their weight and so arrive at different judgments.
(3) To some extent (how great we cannot tell) the way we assess evidence and weigh moral and political values is shaped by our total experience.
(4) Often there are different kinds of normative considerations of different force on both sides of an issue and it is difficult to make an overall assessment.

The burdens of judgment are sufficient to explain reasonable disagreement between libertarians, egalitarian liberals, and conservatives. Adherents of each of these traditions make reasonable yet incompatible judgments about justice, moral values, and the relevant evidence (within certain bounds). So against Chait, we don’t need to explain disagreement between liberals and conservatives by appealing to the notion that liberals embrace empiricism while conservatives are ideological. We only need to point to the differing reasonable ways in which liberals and conservatives interpret evidence and endorse moral principles.

So this is basically to say what you said, but I thought I would sneek in some Rawls while we’re at it.

Take school vouchers. The main goals are to weaken the teachers unions (strong Democratic supports) and channel money to religious institutions (strong Republican supporters). No one really cares if it will provide for a better education system…though the Republicans always pay a few shills to say vouchers are about the children.

No one really cares if it will provide for a better education system…though the Republicans always pay a few shills to say vouchers are about the children.

Taken from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation:

The Children’s Education Foundation (CEF) was started in August of 1992 with a gift of $1 million from a successful Atlanta businessman who wanted to provide a choice of educational opportunities to low-income families. Because of limited finances, these families had no choice in where their children went to school.

The program was designed to provide participating families with a 50 percent financial scholarship (in the form of a voucher) toward the tuition cost at a school of the parents’ choice, either public or private. The other half of the tuition would have to be paid by the family.

Despite the availability of a “free” education at their assigned public school, many times more low-income families applied to participate in the program than could be accommodated. Within the first week of the program’s announcement, CEF received more than 500 applications for the 200 slots, and was forced to cut off applications when the number reached nearly 1,000.

Being able to remain at the public school system of her early school years (City of Decatur) gave Tiffany much needed stability in the seventh grade when her family was falling apart and she was faced with having to move to an inferior and unfamiliar middle school. (Tiffany’s residence was moved out of Decatur, so she was faced with a $2,250 out-of-district tuition to remain in her excellent public school, Renfroe Middle School.)

The Amish people in the Pennsylvania Dutch country are free to attend their own schools and to follow the way of life that they as a community have chosen. As with the Amish people, children in inner-city Atlanta, and many others throughout the entire metropolitan area, also want to fulfill their hopes and dreams by getting the best education available. Therefore, those hopes and dreams may not be fulfilled by attending the public school to which they are assigned. For example, Murjan Ali’s dreams include attending a Black Muslim school. For Micha and Rina Ghertner, it is attending Yeshiva, a Hebrew school.

For these children and many more, the privately-funded voucher program of the Children’s Education Foundation is their only hope — their ticket out. Being financially disadvantaged, these children would have no alternative to the schools assigned to them, except for CEF.

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So tell me again, monkeyboy: who doesn’t really care about providing a better education system?

This also seems to be a private effort, not a government program. I don’t think anyone doubts rich kids (and kids helped by rich people) have better schools open to them.

Government funded vouchers would take money away from public schools…

Don’t change points in midstream. Your “point” was that vouchers are really just a vast right-wing conspiracy to channel money to strong Republican supporters for political results.

As the Supreme Court itself recognized, it is the families who ultimately decide whether their vouchers will be spent on religious schools or secular schools, not the government.

And I don’t know whether you know this or not, but you may want to rethink exactly how much support Republicans get from Jews and Black Muslims. Surely two of the most widely represented groups in the Republican base.

This also seems to be a private effort, not a government program. I don’t think anyone doubts rich kids (and kids helped by rich people) have better schools open to them.

And yet, acknowledging this, you still wish to deny these same opportunities to poor children. Shame on you for calling yourself a liberal.

Government funded vouchers would take money away from public schools…

…And give it to poor children so that they can go to better schools. You seem more concerned with giving money to public schools than you do with actually doing things that help the children who go to these schools.

This time, I think, you went just a little too over the top to fool anyone. School vouchers as wealth transfer from the Democratic poor to the Republican rich?

Now that’s some level-headed empiricism!

Take the war in Iraq. It’s obvious the Republicans calculated their chances of re-election would be better off if we invaded Iraq, so they did. it. Their publicly stated reason for going in changed frequently, but the real reason didn’t. That their pals in the defense industry cleaned up was a bonus, too.

Same thing with the recent restriction of lawsuits against companies. Trial Lawyers are a big supporter of the Democrats. This bill was just an attempt to limit their income.

Again, that Rebublican supporters don’t have to worry so much if one of their products kills or maims a bunch of people is a bonus. I can’t even remember what the publicly stated reason for this bill was…something about protecting consumers by limiting their right to sue a company?

Political power gain + economic gain for your supporters = passed bill.

You are proposing diverting stolen tax money so that the children of the improvident poor can get better educations.

You even advocate giving poor children the same opportunities as richer children, in direct contradiction of the sainted Hayek’s writings on the subject.

What will this do to their parents’ incentives? And you call yourself an anarcho-capitalist.

Where did Hayek say that one shouldn’t divert stolen tax money from an entirely unneeded welfare benefit to rich families to a welfare benefit to poor families? If I recall, Hayek was all in favor of providing a minimum floor for the poor.

Shifting already stolen tax money to more efficient and more moral uses in no way conflicts with anarcho-capitalism. I’d prefer to get the government out of the education business altogether, but until that happens, means testing and school choice for poor children is the way to go.

Where do you get the idea that Republicans came up with this idea? Just like Social Security privatization, school choice is an issue that libertarians like Milton Friedman and the Cato Institute have been advocating for decades, and has only recently been adopted by Republicans. I could care less what their motives might be. I judge public policies by their expected consequences, and not by the motives of the people who propose them.

Your M.O. seems to be:

Step 1: Assume all Republicans intend to do evil.

Step 2: Conclude from Step 1 that any policies proposed by Republicans are necessarily evil, because that is what Republicans intend to do.

Step 3: Profit!

(PS. What was Clinton’s reason for the Balkan interventions? I’m personally inclined to believe that he, just like Bush, sent in troops because he thought it was the right thing to do.

Are you going to claim he’s also in the pocket of the Miltiary Industrial Complex(tm), or are things Different When It’s A Democrat? Either one would be interesting to watch you try and rationalise.)