Mystification and Triumphalism

[saveliberty]

Wall Street Journal:

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• FEBRUARY 21, 2012
  

Mystification and Triumphalism

 

Why the left can't handle the truth about social conservatism.

 

 

By JAMES TARANTO

 

Social liberals have two basic approaches to social conservatism: mystification and triumphalism. Both reflect not a failure of understanding--but more than that, an incapacity to understand, a will to ignorance that is best understood as a psychological defense.

 

For an example of mystification, let's look at a recent column by former Enron adviser Paul Krugman. He ponders the question of why Republican states tend to have higher levels of government dependency--as measured by the percentage of aggregate personal income that comes from transfer payments--than Democratic ones. One possibility he doesn't consider is that the measure is flawed--that there are more and richer rich people in blue states like California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, skewing the percentage downward.