history is bunk! chapter n

So apparently the latest fad is arguing for repeal of the 17th Amendment, which provided for the direct election of U.S. Senators. Normally I don't bother with this stuff but for some reason I got a bit exercised about it. My guess is it's because I know just enough history of the Progressive Era to be able to say this argument is based on a lie. I don't think the people who are pushing for it will care, as they seem to be ok with the notion that everything is fungible. Except of course when it isn't or when it is an idea--not a fact. It is odd that we have entered an era where theories require consistency but facts can be disposed of. I guess the thinking is that if you are high enough on Maslow's hierarchy you can believe whatever you wish because you will be immune to the consequences. Or it's just the angry white folks' version of relativism.

Anyway, here's my cranky post from Balloon Juice

sigh. another crap idea backed by crap scholarship.

i'd like to agree with the poster who suggested the Rs have been reading too much Foucault, but i think it's more likely they've been listening to too much Frank Luntz. or is it watching too many reruns of "Mad Men"?

perhaps the teabaggers would do something else to promote their faith in a non-existent past. maybe they could do something like build temples to their pretend ideology instead of playing pretend with history. dealing with this crap is like dealing with "the protocols of the elders of zion": no matter how many times you smush it, it pops up again, like a stubborn weed. i am not certain who coined the term, but "zombie argument" is apt here.

so, a brief rebuttal:

a. citing yourself does not constitute proof

the Dean piece quoted above cites to a Zywicki book review from the mid 1990s that claims that a public choice analysis demonstrates that major interests wanted the 17th to pass. guess who he cites in supporrt of this idea? Jay Bybee (yeah, that Jay Bybee) and himself.

b. for lawyers, history IS bunk

what you have here is the usual lawyer trick of pretending that history (that is the actual facts) don't matter when you have a more clever explanation as to what occurred. and if the facts don't fit, well you just ignore them in favor of your overarching theory. as an aside, never trust a lawyer's argument about history, especially when, as here, the intent is to prove a theory. see, it's just a notion to them, and being "different" is a good way to be noticed and get tenure.

c. out damned facts!

here are a couple of those pesky facts: the initiative was taken up in the states, not at the federal level, where it was initially opposed in the senate. next, for this argument to be correct it would require that all of the supporters for the thirty years before it was passed including such favorites of the plutocrats as the Populist Party were secretly working for Standard Oil. i could keep going, but you get the drift. i would be remiss if i didn't include this famous line from The Atlantic (yes, that one):

The Standard has done everything with the Pennsylvania legislature, except refine it.

H.D. Lloyd, Story of A Great Monopoly, The Atlantic, March 1881, n.p.

d. reality bites

incidentally, the better explanation is that the move towards an expanding federal government was being made, but not that many were paying attention. those ideas would be picked up and used in the 1930s, not the 1910s (excepting some of Wilson's more reprehensible civil liberties manouvers--like Bush, he did a lot of damage whilst mouthing off about democracy).

anyway, to repeat, this is a clever lawyer trick, nothing more. it is an effort to pretend that history is bunk, in that it can be rewritten at will. an analogy would be the recurring argument that the Civil War was not about slavery.