Mindless chanting to prevent reasoned discourse, orgnized by those with financial stakes in current practices, isn’t exactly a new idea. The idol-makers of Ephesus had perfected it 2000 years ago.
No doubt it would shock the teabaggers – no doubt most of them churchgoers – who are now chanting slogans to shout down Members of Congress to know that their behavior is rather … pagan. Notice that the motivations are the same; the mob at Ephesus was organized by the idol-makers, whose lucrative trade was threatned by Christianity, just as the mobs disrupting the town-halls are organized by the health-care industry racketeers.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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