It’s never 4:20 in the lefty think tanks?
By Thoreau
Over the weekend, we discussed how the rank-and-file supporters of legalization do mostly lean left (although some of my more nanny-style lefty friends and “I don’t smoke it so taxing it won’t affect me!” righty friends run counter to both sides of that stereotype) Democratic politicians are mostly against legalization (at least in public) for obvious reasons of kulturkampf. (And probably also the fact that politicians of any stripe like things that involve power.) I just realized this morning that when I read about legalization, any time I see mention of a pro-legalization think-tanker it’s always, always, ALWAYS a Cato person. Admittedly, I don’t read every single piece of literature on legalization or every single article on Prop. 19, but I do read non-libertarian stuff on legalization, and even the lefty stuff on legalization seems to quote Cato. Even Greenwald, when talking about Portugal’s experiment, gave a talk at Cato.
Now, Cato is obviously a well-known institution that has spent a lot of time writing about legalization, so there’s one reason for them to get lots of attention on this. And I do realize that right-leaning and libertarian-leaning think tanks outnumber lefty think tanks (less so than in the past, admittedly), so statistically any time you see a think tank quoted the odds are that it’s not a lefty think tank. Finally, I admit that I have not personally checked every position paper ever put out by a lefty think tank, so maybe there’s a whole bunch of legalization sentiment that I’m just missing out on. But, whatever the reason, and however much individuals in lefty think tanks might have pro-legalization views, it’s Cato that gets all the attention.
Am I just missing out on stuff? Or is it the case that just as Democratic politicians who want to be seen as “Serious” avoid legalization talk (never mind that they and their Republican counterparts probably all inhaled in college) the lefty think tankers also avoid legalization talk to be seen as “Serious”? Or is it an amalgam of these: There are indeed lefty position papers in favor of legalization, but the media quotes Cato because they are seen as more respectable on legalization than those dirty hippies in the lefty think tanks?
Comment by bill —
October 25, 2010 @ 12:05 pm
Yes.
Comment by Ken Houghton —
October 25, 2010 @ 12:06 pm
There are no real “lefty” think tanks. Brookings? Don’t make us laugh. CAP? That these are the people who gave Matty Y a star position speaks for itself. CBPP? The “B” for “Budget” shows that they concentrate on the gossip centers of DC. (Maybe their next move is to work on a State level. Maybe my next marriage will be to Olivia Wilde. Would there even be a spread bet to make there?)
There is the basic question: the CATO argument is that the “social cost” of enforcement is greater than the social cost of drug use. The lefty organizations have spent the last thirty-plus years trying to argue that there are “social benefits” (roads, Admin costs, poverty reduction, clean air and water, etc.). That they are obligated to make those arguments is insane enough; that talking about the reality of “social costs” would be used to undermine their arguments in favor of initiatives that don’t socialize the losses may make such a move problematic. (We can argue whether that’s a Failure of Leadership or reflects the political sphere.)
In short, “only CATO could go to 4:20″ or 7:14 or any other area where the gains is explicitly from cost reduction.
Comment by Thoreau —
October 25, 2010 @ 12:13 pm
Ken,
It’s interesting that you see arguments about the negative costs of public policy as being anathema to lefty organizations. Lefties have all sorts of policies that they oppose and want to eliminate or substantially modify. It’s not like a lefty has never argued that subsidized farms are bad for the environment.
Generally, when I hear “Lefties can’t argue that policies create social costs” it comes from a libertarian trying to attack a strawman version of a lefty.
As to think tanks, OK, I’ll say that there are no true lefty think tanks (and also no true Scotsman think tanks). But you admit that there are lefty “organizations.” Why are none of them ever heard on this issue? Is it that they simply prioritize differently than Cato (a perfectly reasonable stance), that they regard the issue as kulturkampf kryptonite, that they actually support at least some version of prohibition (even if their version would be enforced differently than the status quo) or that they are speaking and nobody is listening?
Comment by Thoreau —
October 25, 2010 @ 12:17 pm
Actually, once we go beyond think-tanks to lefty organizations in general, I can think of several that have spoken out on Prop 19, so I guess the silence is from the think tanks, not from lefty organizations.
Comment by bfa —
October 25, 2010 @ 1:23 pm
I think you’re spot on when you say that think tanks and politicians on the left see it as kryptonite. They’ll be accused of being hippies, which is the worst label a lefty pole can get. It doesn’t just imply being left wing, but also being non-serious. It’s like a female politician being called humorless, it’s just the kiss of death.
Comment by the innominate one —
October 25, 2010 @ 1:50 pm
I think it’s “Only Nixon could go to China” syndrome. If a lefty had tried to make nice with the ChiComms, he would have been lambasted for showing his true colors.
Minor point, but IIRC Greenwald was actually paid by Cato for analyzing Portugal’s policy experiment, thus the talk at Cato.
Comment by fyodor —
October 25, 2010 @ 2:33 pm
All have made good points but I think too that the left has often been divided on this with much of it favoring harm reduction or medicalization, i.e., stressing therapy over direct incarceration (albeit with the threat of the latter) for users rather than outright legalization. For probably fairly obvious reasons (and sadly so, IMO).
Comment by joe from Lowell —
October 25, 2010 @ 2:44 pm
Thoreau,
Have you ever seen actual quantitative breakdowns of the guest and commenters on political talk shows? I think you’re assuming that the partisan/ideological breakdown of commentators invited to talk about marijuana legalization is unique to that issue, and it’s just not.
There are, indeed, all sort of lefty think tanks that put out stuff about marijuana legalization. The media avoidance of them and preference for right-leaning organizations is really no different from the general preference the media has for right-of-center voices in general.
Comment by Thoreau —
October 25, 2010 @ 3:07 pm
joe,
I wasn’t thinking about talk shows. I rarely watch them. I was thinking about newspapers to some extent, but mostly about literature from legalizers.
And I think the big problem is that I was thinking of the specific “think tank” category rather than the more general “lefty organizations” category. Not every lefty organization is a “think tank”, as in “an advocacy shop that puts on an academic veneer.” Most of them have more of a focus on activism, lobbying, media, or litigation (e.g. ACLU). They still put out studies, but research papers are not their sole output. So that was my mistake.
On the issue at hand, I count the ACLU as a prominent voice but not a “think tank”, and the state chapter of the NAACP, which is an advocacy group that has been involved with 19 but is not a “think tank” because research papers are not their primary product. I’m sure that if I think more about it I could come up with others.
(I should also note that “lefty” is not quite the right label for the NAACP or the ACLU. They’re lefty because that’s where their cause usually takes them, while think tanks are lefty or righty because they decided to be lefty or righty. If abortion protesters are arrested, the ACLU comes down on the “righty” side. If black businesses face onerous regulations, the NAACP might be on the same side as the Chamber of Commerce, for that particular situation.)
Comment by Sean —
October 25, 2010 @ 3:51 pm
Well, Jane Hamsher’s behind the Just Say Now! campaign.
Then again, she’s the b%^$h who tried to scuttle health care reform at the end because it wasn’t “good enough,” so pot legalization might just be her latest “lefter than thou” move.
Comment by Glaivester —
October 25, 2010 @ 7:53 pm
Thoreau #9:
I think that you could call the ACLU at least somewhat philosophically “lefty” (rather than simply being taken in that direction by their issues) in that they define “civil liberties” in a more lefty way, e.g. in terms of private businesses and antidiscrimination laws, they put more of an emphasis on equality than on freedom on how disposes of their property, compared to what a similar right-leaning organization would do.
Although your point is sound in that the ACLU leans left but doesn’t dogmatically pick positions in a right-left way.
Comment by Steven desJardins —
October 25, 2010 @ 10:13 pm
#10: I’m not a big fan of zero tolerance policies, but for misogynistic slurs I think I could make an exception.
Comment by Matt Austern —
October 25, 2010 @ 10:42 pm
I’d go along with #2. What major lefty think tanks do you have in mind whose silence surprises you? That is, what lefty think tanks do you regularly see quoted in the media, regularly enough that you’d expect to see them quoted on this issue in particular?
I don’t think there are any. Brookings comes closest, but they aren’t particularly lefty. You’ll fail to find anything especially left in their mission statement or their panel of experts.
Think tanks just aren’t a particularly lefty institution. The reasons for that are largely obvious.
Comment by mds —
October 26, 2010 @ 9:33 am
Yeah, various efforts to get more broad-based left-wing “think tanks” off the ground have foundered on the need for sugar daddies. And it wouldn’t particularly help their reputation if George “Antichrist” Soros rode to their rescue, either. Or any “limousine liberal,” for that matter, since left-leaning wealthy people are supposed to STFU and cede the field to, e.g., the doughty blue-collar yeomen of the US Chamber of Commerce.
I would like to see if CEPR could expand its offerings on the general “Policy” front, since Dean Baker has certainly bucked the conventional wisdom on many “Economic” issues. But again, it takes resources, and their current staff list is not particularly long.
Comment by grog —
October 26, 2010 @ 9:36 am
I think Cato wins this particular race because of a couple interlocking factors – as mentioned, the Nixon goes to China effect, where the media doesn’t want to listen to hippies about drugs, coupled with the fact that as far as I know, they really are the only name brand group that has been consistently pro-legalization for a long time.
Related, I think for groups that support legalization are by definition hippies and therefor untouchable, and are more single issue. LEAP come to mind – they aren’t left wing, but a bunch of law and order cops who support legalization by definition *has* to be left wing, coupled with the notion that there’s dismissable like ex-Catholics against kiddie diddling.
Comment by dhex —
October 27, 2010 @ 8:11 am
more practically: who needs think tanks when you have most universities?
Comment by mds —
October 27, 2010 @ 10:20 am
Because John Negroponte and Stanley McChrystal presumably need somewhere to go after Yale? Because John Yoo shouldn’t have to slum at Boalt Hall forever? Because many professors do occasionally put a little effort into their official jobs, and are thereby limited in their ability to provide position papers on demand?
… Or, wait, was that rhetorical? Ever since the war, I have trouble recognizing rhetorical questions.
Comment by dhex —
October 27, 2010 @ 12:42 pm
i was referring to why there aren’t many lefty think tanks. why buy the cow when you get the milk for free and other metaphors.
Comment by mds —
October 27, 2010 @ 1:14 pm
Yeah, I got that, but I was just verrrry subtly pointing out that institutions which, e.g., employ John Negroponte while withdrawing a job offer to Juan Cole, are not as authentically “lefty” as David Horowitz portrays them. And again, many professors have duties precluding them from timely milk production. Regular milkings aren’t usually part of their job description, the way it would be in a tank. Not all universities have a Mercatus Center.
Comment by dhex —
October 27, 2010 @ 1:51 pm
if some universities employ some conservatives/criminals (hi john yoo), i don’t think that takes away from the general tilt in america.
david horowitz is a fuckhead, but stopped clocks and all that jazz.
Comment by dhex —
October 27, 2010 @ 1:55 pm
ahem, hit return too soon.
point being that the need for “lefty think tanks” is reduced. if you want to argue for cause xyz, you have plenty of material to pull from.
labors of love.
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October 29, 2010 @ 10:32 am
[...] as Thoreau noted earlier this week, the best resources on drug prohibition still come out of Cato – not liberal think tanks or [...]