Talk:What's the Matter with Kansas?

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Contents 1 title of this novel illuminates a great topic at hand 2 My edits 3 "the laissez faire economic policies of the GOP" 4 anons (208.238.104.138) contributions 5 Malanga Edits 6 Commodore Sloat's edits 7 Removal of "Citation Needed" 8 Removal of fact tag 9 Removed the following text 10 Removed the following text 2

[edit] title of this novel illuminates a great topic at hand

Hey The title of this novel illuminates a great topic at hand...what truelly is the matter with kansas? Is that problem we see in the conservative Kansas passing through other states like wild fire and making everyone go nuts. Becaase once a upon a time..the state of kansas was inundated with radical and liberal ideology but has transformed into a gruesome right wing dull state. Here me out and tell me what the matter is...................? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.106.19.14 (talk • contribs).

SIGN YOUR POSTS! use: ~~~~ Travb 00:16, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I read this book about 4 months ago. While Frank does make some good points, he seems to exaggerate the reflexes of Kansas folk against liberal social values. In addition, his economic viewpoint seems too skewed to the left. Instead, I would postulate that taxes do indeed take a critical forefront in the Republican agenda; it is not an item they hide, and indeed, the use quite frequently to attack Democrats. So to say that only social issues are in the discourse of Kansas is missing some vital points.

[edit] My edits

I've just done a half-way rewrite of the article. I think my wording is better and more concise than what it replaced -- feel free to quibble with me on that. However, I've removed a couple things because I think they badly misrepresents the book and Frank's argument:

• "contends that the Democrats would have to abandon their cultural leftist viewpoints in favor of economic leftism to win back their natural constituency"

Though many people have drawn this conclusion based on Frank's writing, I would challenge anyone to find any place in the book where he comes out and argues that Democrats abandon their positions on abortion, gay rights, etc.

• "Frank theorizes that affluent moderate Republicans, disgusted with their party's takeover by the religious right, will defect to the Democratic Party. He also theorizes that this defection will influence the platform of the Democratic Party, transforming the once progressive middle class bastion into a party of fiscally conservative and socially liberal elitists, exactly to the contrary of the Party's historical makeup."

Again, I don't think is in the book. The only thing I can find that comes close is some relatively brief discussion in the epilogue of the impact of the DLC on the Democratic Party and the possibility that the Mods might abandon the GOP. This hardly constitutes a fully-articulated theory on the future of the American party system, and it's relatively incidental to his larger point.

RadicalSubversiv E 04:18, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "the laissez faire economic policies of the GOP"

I'm uncomfortable with the slight POV represented in this line:

the laissez faire economic policies of the GOP

The problem is that the GOP policies are not "laissez faire", and I think that most economic libertarians agree with me. If Frank describes the GOP policies as "laissez faire", then it should be more explicitly stated that this is his description and is not a consensus among those who are concerned with this issue. I don't know if there's a better descriptor of GOP economic policy--perhaps "pro-business" or such. If we really want to be neutral about it, we can't really give it a one-word descriptor, and will just have to say "GOP economic policies". AdamRetchless 01:13, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree but this person is highly partisan. Economic libertarians like me laugh at Frank. His premise is that socialism is superior to capitalism, and he wonders why people would choose this obviously flawed capitalist system.

I think it's pretty absurd to imply that one would have to satisfy an extremist advocacy group like "economic libertarians" in order to achieve NPOV. 64.122.41.167 22:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] anons (208.238.104.138) contributions

POV: Malanga's argument, however, is of questionable merit

POV:It is also disingenuous

Minor issue, which does not make Malanga's entire argument void: First of all, he says that Frank is from Shawnee, whereas Frank was actually raised in Mission Hills.

Confusing paragraph:

Anon, you quote Frank:

"By all the standards of contemporary American business civilization, it is a great success story. It is the wealthiest county in Kansas by a considerable margin, and the free-market rapture of the New Economy nineties served it well, scandals notwithstanding. Telecom and corporate management were the right businesses to be in, and Johnson County's population grew by almost 100,000 over the course of the decade: an unflagging stream of middle-class humanity to fill its office parks and to absorb the manufactured bonhomie of its Applebee's and the gourmet pretensions of its Dean & DeLucas."

And then you write: "It is also disingenuous to depict the economic status of Kansas based on the figures for Johnson County, which enjoys a median income that is nearly twice the median income of other counties in the state."

Huh? We were talking about Frank? Who is disingeous anon? Frank or Malanga? I hazard a guess with your edits, and attempted to divine what you meant from these poorly worded sentences:

Malanga depects the economic status of all of Kansas based on the figures for Johnson County alone, which enjoys a median income that is nearly twice the median income of other counties in the state. Frank himself acknowledges this boom, describing how Mission Hills and Johnson County in general have seen increasing affluence since he has left: (quote)

Is this what you meant? Please explain.

Messing up the footnotes: You messed up all of the footnotes in your latest edit. <sup id="fn_4_back">[[#fn_4|4]]</sup> to 4. This is incorrect. Please do not mess with other people's footnotes.

If you want to revert back at least fix the footnotes that you messed up. This is the biggest reason I am going to revert to the previous old edits. If you insist on reverting yet again, please fix the footnotes you broke, and your addition can stand (at least I wont revert it, I can't speak for TDC) until we reach a comprimise.

I think your contributions have promise, but they need to be fine tuned.Travb 02:47, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Malanga Edits

If you do not want to get in a battle over the Malanga content, then I suggest you either take down any reference to Malanga, or put up with the fact that a proper response would include:

1) That his original article includes factual errors. (This point is important, as it allows a reader to fairly asses his skills as writer and researcher.

2) That Malanga has--either willfully or out of ineptitude--made the claim in his article that Johnson County is presently in poor economic straights. Frank does not, and Malanga has again gotten the facts wrong. (At one point, Frank mentions the crumbling buildings during the recession in the 1970s--but that is not the same thing. There is a very clear deliniation between those time periods in the book.) Yet you took the quote that I added in order to prove that this was not in fact Frank's description, and you changed the introduction to make it appear as if the Frank quote actually bolsters the Malanga argument, which is a distortion to say the least.

3) One of the central points in Frank's book is that Johnson County is the seat of monied elites and Republican power in Kansas, and that while these groups have enriched themselves in recent years, the rest of the state has suffered. It is therefore flat out ridiculous to argue that the financial situation for all Kansans is peachy-keen because the folks in Johnson County are doing well. Such an argument fails to acknowledge on of the central points in Franks book, and also seems to be an intentional distortion of fact in order to serve political ends.

I really don't feel like arguing these points. It seems to me that Malanga's fallacies whould be evident to anyone who has read the book and the article--or knows a thing about Kansas--but I can't stand to have a reasonable thesis impugned in front of the casual observer. If you don't like Frank's book, find a better critique. No one claimed that Frank's book is without its faults; find an article that presents a well-thought out, logically sound critique. I'm not going to fuss over the wording in my Malanga response; if you insist on removing an adequate response, I will simply delete everything about the Malanga article everytime I see it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.112.173.230 (talk • contribs).

Please sign your posts, posts go on the bottom, not the top.

You assume a lot in your response.

First you assume that I have not read Frank, I have, in fact I typed up a good portion of his works: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/What%27s_the_Matter_with_Kansas%3F

Second, you assume that I disagree with Frank. I loved the book.

Third, you may assume that I am a conservative, I am not, I am probably more liberal than you.

The reason I edited your section was because User:TDC, a hardcore conservative who gets into a lot of revert wars, deleted your entry. To avoid a revert war, I rewrote your poorly written and POV laden entry.

You wrote:

Yet you took the quote that I added in order to prove that this was not in fact Frank's description, and you changed the introduction to make it appear as if the Frank quote actually bolsters the Malanga argument, which is a distortion to say the least.

You assume that I was attempting to distort your words, when in reality I am trying to salvage your idea, and try to stop a revert war with TDC. Your entry was so poorly worded, I had to guess what you meant--I guessed wrong. Please rewrite it so it is clearer.

I am not arguing your points, I AGREE with your points. I am just attempting to rewrite your points in a non-POV manner. Please take the time to reword the confusing entry, and tone down the POV, or User:TDC will simply delete your entry and you two will get in a long revert war, as I have seen him do on numerous articles.

Please do not mess up footnotes in the future.Travb 13:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

(later) I read your edits, nice job, much more understandable. Thank you for your clarifications and correcting the footnotes.Travb 13:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Commodore Sloat's edits

Original:

Although widely praised in left-wing circles, the book has numerous critics from all sides of the political spectrum. Many, like Steven Malanga, point out that while Frank portrays the electorate in Kansas as voting against its self interests, the state's economy has actually fared better than average since the conservative and Republican tilt of the state began.

Commodore Sloat edits:

Although widely praised in some circles, the book has numerous critics. Steven Malanga points out that while Frank portrays the electorate in Kansas as voting against its self interests, the state's economy has actually fared better than average since the conservative and Republican tilt of the state began.

Commodore Sloat's reasoning:

Criticisms - rm bogus left/right lens -- it has been praised by non-left-wing readers too, and let's not attribute Malanga's view to "many" without evidence. Same with "common" and "many" on Leo

My comments:

One weasel word deleted, another weasel word added

Commodore Sloat, in your edit you deleted one weasel words "many" :

"Many, like Steven Malanga", >>> "Steven Malanga points out"

To only add another weasel word "some":

"Although widely praised in left-wing circles" >>> "Although widely praised in some circles"

To keep consistency, I am going to return "left-wing circles".

nit-picky

The other edits I mostly agree with, nice job. Although I think your edits are incredibly nit-picky, unimportant, and likely to get you into a edit war.

I disagree about you taking out the "controversial" too, I think Franks book is controversial.

In addition, "from all sides of the political spectrum" could be changed to "left-wing author x and libertarean author y", which is illustrated further in the article when a reader reads the entire criticism section. Travb 20:30, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

LOL... "nice job" but "incredibly nit-picky" & "unimportant". Gee, thanks. Now, to the issues here -- it is not nitpicky to insist on some pretense of accuracy. The book is not just praised in "left wing" circles; I'm also not sure it is "widely" praised at all. But it is clearly taken seriously in the mainstream (though I guess to some people, the mainstream is "left-wing"). The book probably has critics from different political perspectives too. Why must everything on wikipedia be viewed by some editors exclusively from a "right-wing/left-wing" lens? The real world is more complex than that. And I'm going to have to decline your invitation to an edit war.--csloat 20:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and deleted the sentence: Although widely praised in left-wing circles, the book has numerous critics.

I think it was intended as a transition sentence, but it is a weak sentence, with many weasel words. Since the author of one of the books deleted one paragraph for being incorrect, the idea of "numerous critics" doesn't seem to ring true anymore either. (Althought I do agree that Franks does has "numerous critics", there are only two currently listed here).Travb 20:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Much better edit; I agree the sentence is basically useless.--csloat 20:50, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

No I am not inviting you to a edit war, just warning about one. we probably have the same POV. Nice edits.;-) Travb 04:04, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of "Citation Needed"

I removed the {fact} tag for the sentance "It was published in the United Kingdom as 'What's The Matter With America?'. This is very easily verrified by a simple search on any online uk bookstore. For example: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099492938/qid=1148160652/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_2_3/203-0252236-4209560 I don't really think that a link such as this needs to be added to the references (and to be honest I think that it would be frowned upon to link to a commercial website such as this). Keithmahoney 21:35, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I was the one who added fact tag. No worries. thanks.Travb (talk) 01:05, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of fact tag

An anon removed the {{fact}} tag and replaced it with this:

Examples being Nebraskan Warren Buffett and currency speculator George Soros as well as many Hollywood celebrities who support the Democratic party.

I reverted the edit. Travb (talk) 18:04, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed the following text

I removed the following:

Along those same lines, other conservative critics have asserted that Frank displays an innate elitism in decrying the voting patterns of working class voters who support candidates opposed to their economic interests, while ignoring the fact that many wealthy liberals vote for politicians who oppose policies generally considered to be of greater benefit to the wealthy.{{fact}}

The fact tag has been on this page for months. No one has added a reference. Travb (talk) 02:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed the following text 2

RE:

An argument could also be made that Frank has not completely addressed his notion that class has become irrelevant in American politics. If he is correct in saying that working-class white conservatives have put their economic interests aside for the sake of social issues, could not the same be said for upper-class "blue staters" with six- and seven-figure incomes who vote for Democratic candidates - who promise to raise their taxes and increase regulation of their businesses - for the sake of defending abortion and secularism?

Please source your criticism. Thanks. Best wishes, Travb (talk) 16:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)