OT: Matt Yglesias Should Research Before Writing Next Time
April 01, 2013
This post is off topic of the point of the blog, but I needed to respond to Matt Yglesias of slate.com. On March 29th, 2013 he posted this blog. I would like to take the time now to discuss why I think he displayed a tremendous amount of bias and lack of research in his response to a study that was well thought out and meticulously researched by William P. Ruger and Jason Sorens of the Mercatus Institute.The first problem I have with Mr. Yglesias's article is that he appears to ignore that fact that the website clearly states that everyone has a different definition of freedom
We happily concede that different people value aspects of freedom differently. You can personalize the ranking and pick and choose which aspects of freedom you value and see how the states stack up.and thus they provide you the data and a fun online tool so that you can rank freedom in the manner that you choose. If he would have taken the time to read the entire website and/or the actual published academic article he would have been able to create this map. Now things still don't look better for his beloved New York, but I was also only able to adjust the rankings based on what he wrote in his article. I did not feel it was within my purview to speculate on issues not mentioned.
Next he writes,
Some of the problem here arise from arbitrary weighting of different categories in order to simultaneously preserve libertarianism as a distinct brand and also preserve libertarianism's strong alliance with social conservatism.At this point I can only guess that he did not take the time to actually read the published paper. In the paper you will see that the rankings were not arbitrary.
Each variable receives a dollar estimate, representing the financial, psychological, and welfare benefits of a standardized shift of the variable in a pro-freedom direction to those people who enjoy more freedom. We base these values on estimates derived from the scholarly literature in economics and public policy that quantifies the effects of policies on behavior.The authors also discuss three other possible ways to weight the categories of freedom. The goal was to be as objective as humanly possible and to specifically avoid arbitrarily weighting. Now if he had a problem with the method they used to weight it, that is a reasonable and scholarly critique of their work. However, it appears he put no effort into even trying to understand their method and it reeks of intellectual laziness.
Another point he makes that shows his lack of effort to actually read the published article is the following statement.
A woman's right to terminate a pregnancy or a doctor's right to offer a pregnant woman treatment she considers appropriate are given zero weight.The authors address this point by noting,
Our definition of freedom presents specific challenges on some high-profile issues. Abortion is a critical example. According to one view, a fetus is a rightsbearing person, and abortion is therefore an aggressive violation of individual rights that ought to be punished by the government. According to another view, a fetus does not have rights, and abortion is a permissible exercise of an individual liberty, which entails that government regulation of abortion is an unjust violation of a woman’s rights. Rather than take a stand on one side or the other (or anywhere between), we have coded the data on state abortion restrictions and made them available online at www.statepolicyindex.com, but have not included the policy in the index of freedom.Now Mr. Yglesias contends that that cannot be their reason for leaving it off when he writes,
You might think at first that abortion rights are given zero weight for metaphysical reasons rather than reasons of cultural politics, but it turns out that permissive homeschooling laws are given weight as a factor in freedom. Children, in other words, are considered fully autonomous agents whose rights the state must safeguard vis-a-vis their own parents from birth until conception at which point they lose autonomy until graduation from high school.However that is also addressed in the article.
We recognize that children and the insane must be treated differently from competent adults, and also that some rights may not be alienated even by consenting adults.Any reasonable person can understand that some rights, the right to life, are so important that even your parents can't make a decision about that for you. However, education decisions it is safe to say should be made by the parent of the child.
Another attack he makes is
Nor is there any coherent treatment of the question your "freedom" to trample all over my legitimate interests.That statement is just flat out false. There is a huge section in the introduction that addresses what they are talking about when they use the word "freedom". They say, "individuals should be allowed to dispose of their lives, liberties, and property as they see fit, so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others." The authors go on to say that they agree that certain things may be dangerous to others but the act itself does not directly trample another's liberty. I personally see driving as a privilege and not a right so I think it is well within the scope of state governments to regulate it. The authors, however, were trying to remain consistent.
Mr. Yglesias also makes a lot of condescending remarks such as,
What's particularly distressing here is that while any reasonable person can look at this map and see that something's gone wrong.No. A reasonable person can look at the map, read all of the associated information, and understand the goal of the authors. On the other hand, a biased person can look at the map and see that it doesn't fit their particular agenda and whine about it without actually taking the time to read and use the tool/data to create their own rankings based on their personal definitions of freedom.
He goes on to state,
That's great if you want to build a tendentious case against New York, but in fact the state's population is higher than it was ten years ago since it experiences large levels of international in-migration.Way to go Mr. Yglesias! You were able to come up with a fact that they noted on their website.
New York’s slight population increase over this period came solely from foreign immigration and natural increase.Then he goes into a rant that reeks of big city elitism. Somehow he starts to confuse the New York metropolitan area and the state of New York when he discusses Brooklyn increasing in the price that it costs to buy a home. I'm confused on how one city increasing in cost of living has to do anything with the state as a whole.
This next bit is particularly laughable.
The much more plausible explanation is that no normal person's experience of freedom tracks the conclusion that New York is less free than South Dakota. You can, obviously, do a much wider range of things in New York than in South Dakota.I'm a normal person and I don't think it is obvious that you can do "a much wider range of things" in New York than you could in South Dakota. What exactly is there that you can do in New York that you can't do in South Dakota? As far as I am aware, in both states you can hike, hunt, go to bars, go to movies, go to plays, go to museums, see national monuments, go to college, get a job, and wide range of other things that "normal" people find enjoyable. Sure New York might have more attractions, but if your definition of freedom is having amenities and easy access to cultural centers then maybe you would like to live in Pyongyang, North Korea. Lots of amenities and cultural centers for the politically connected there.
Mr. Yglesias's article was poorly researched, stunk of big city elitism, and overall just came off as a bitter person upset that his favorite place to live wasn't highly ranked. I expect a lot more from someone who graduated Magna cum laude from Harvard and calls himself a journalist.