The Silent Majority: Immigration restriction, protection of domestic jobs, limitation of government on all levels, ending our world police man status, build nuclear power plans en masse, term limits and devolution of power from the central government. Believe it Dayo and David.

Always great to see Dayo and Dave. Together, all the better. Dave was on Rachel Maddow's show tonight discussing the teabaggers who are challenging Ron Paul in his district's Republican primary. Rachel and Dave also discussed whether teabaggers are more like Ron Paul libertarians, or Jim DeMint Republicans.

This is David's version and he pretends that there is a consensus about his version, but that's not true even in Econ departments. Now, I agree that cutting taxes has many meanings and that it doesn't necessarily 'stimulate' (whatever that means), but the part about Keynesians deficit spending is dubious, especially since most of Reagan's spending was on the military.

Quoting Unit: This is David's version and he pretends that there is a consensus about his version, but that's not true even in Econ departments. Now, I agree that cutting taxes has many meanings and that it doesn't necessarily 'stimulate' (whatever that means), but the part about Keynesians deficit spending is dubious, especially since most of Reagan's spending was on the military.

That's why it's called military Keynesianism.

Quoting claymisher: That's why it's called military Keynesianism.

Oh, I didn't know it had a name. Sure you can raise GDP that way, but tanks and bombs are not really 'growth' in my book. "Growth" means better ways of doing more with less, and unfortunately that's very hard to measure with Keynesian aggregates.

Quoting TwinSwords: Always great to see Dayo and Dave. Together, all the better.

Dave was on Rachel Maddow's show tonight discussing the teabaggers who are challenging Ron Paul in his district's Republican primary. Rachel and Dave also discussed whether teabaggers are more like Ron Paul libertarians, or Jim DeMint Republicans.

David reports on the same topic here. So, who of the prominent conservatives is going to support the primary challenge to Ron Paul? Bill Kristol, alright, but are David Frum and David Brooks joining the Tea Partay?
There is no question there exists an internal ideological tension between different strains of the conservative movement. But if this particular story doesn't amount to more than a bunch of individuals challenging Paul without real popular support, which happened in the past, I'll call it a shoddy, sensationalistic reporting on Weigel's part.

From the rest of the issues you list, I sort of get the vibe that most that fit in your silent majority designation do not think AGW is a problem. So why would they want to build nuclear power plants? That won't give us energy independence.

Quoting Unit: This is David's version and he pretends that there is a consensus about his version, but that's not true even in Econ departments.

This is not the first time Weigel pretends Keynesianism is some sort of a "scientific consensus". I think you called him on it before when he said something similar about the Great Depression.
It's funny how invocation of the "scientific consensus", behind which all reasonable people should stand in line, goes farther and farther towards epistemological wilderness (Evolution->Global Warming->Economic Interventionism).

Quoting Unit: This is David's version and he pretends that there is a consensus about his version, but that's not true even in Econ departments. Now, I agree that cutting taxes has many meanings and that it doesn't necessarily 'stimulate' (whatever that means), but the part about Keynesians deficit spending is dubious, especially since most of Reagan's spending was on the military.

What is dubious about it? Military spending (new weapons systems etc) did account for most of the deficit spending under Reagan. Could you cite an economist who thinks that tax cuts were the main motor of growth during that period? Re: claymisher's point. Keynes thought that running deficits for war would confirm his theory, even though he deplored the fact. He wrote several articles to that effect in the early years of WW II.

Dayo Olopade, regarding what you said here... http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/258...2:08&out=23:31 The "tea party movement" did start during Bush's presidency. Read the archives of libertarian websites, you'll see the same or very similar criticisms of Bush as you see of Obama. It's just the "tea party" name got popular during Obama's presidency. The "tea party movement" started as a reaction to the bailouts that Bush started.