Wonking Off: A Policy and Politics Podcast

More from our special guest and grad school pal Dave on the scourge of single-family zoning.  After this episode, Wonking Off is going on indefinite hiatus.  Pray to the Wonk Gods that we'll be back again some day!  Thanks for listening!  

Rents and home prices keep going up in American cities, squeezing and pricing out many middle and lower income households.  Our guest Dave thinks one of the main reasons is that cities make it very hard to build new and denser forms of housing through their zoning codes, specifically by only allowing single-family detached homes in most areas.  Joe and Jake preside as co-hosts.  Part 1 of 2. 

Note: there are some audio quality issues in this episode.  Please be patient through those spots. 

Jake proffers the radical notion that Americans' views on progressivism can be explained by their morals, specifically their understanding of justice.  But what is justice?  Justice is about who deserves what and why...i.e., it's about deservitude, dude.  And where do these moral ideas come from?  Jake argues that they evolve as social institutions.  What does that mean?  Listen and find out!  Strap in; this one gets deep.  Joe and Alan co-host.  

Why is the U.S. so much less progressive in its approach to public policy than other wealthy countries?  A lot of social scientists have tried to crack that nut over the years, one of which is our esteemed host, Jake!  In part 1, Jake takes Alan and Joe through the public opinion puzzles of America's relative conservatism and some of the leading theories others have proposed to explain it.  Stay tuned for part 2, where the gang will delve into Jake's own work on Americans' views on justice and desert...deservingness...deservitude...deservosity.  

Bower-Bir, J. S. (2021). Earning our place, more or less: responsibility’s flexible relationship with desert in socioeconomic standing. Economia Politica, 38(1), 131-170

Bower-Bir, J. S. (2014). What we deserve: The moral origins of economic inequality and our policy responses to it (Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University).

Who should decide what kids learn in school?  How should we decide it?  

We're lucky that one of our stalwart hosts, Alan, a veteran public school teacher, is here to help guide us through the morass of K-12 curriculum policy and the current hubbub about Critical Race Theory.  Joe and Kat attend as co-hosts.  

A bit of a free-ranging chat about universal healthcare and America's healthcare dystopia.  Joe, Kat, and Alan are joined by our new host, Amanda. Jake, ironically, was sick for this recording and couldn't make it.  Isn't it ironic?  Don't you think?  

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/health-care-and-insurance.htm

https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy-statistics-4154729

https://www.kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/data-note-americans-challenges-health-care-costs/

The government's UFO report has dropped!  Joe, Alan, Jake, and Steve finish up their conversation about UFOs/UAPs and ask, "Just what the dagblam heck are these things anyway?!"  

Office of the Director of National Intelligence (2021).  Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.  

With the first government report on UFOs since Project Bluebook due to be released this month, the gang decides to put on their Muller and Scully hats and take on the topic of UFOs.  With special guest, Steve, Joe's friend and bandmate and fellow UFO enthusiast.  

Selected References

Barnes, Julian and Helene Cooper (2021). U.S. Finds No Evidence of Alien Technology in Flying Objects, but Can’t Rule It Out, Either.  The New York Times. 

Cooper, Helene, Ralph Blumenthal, and Leslie Kean (2017) Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program. The New York Times. 

Fox, James (2020). The Phenomenon [Film]. Farah Films. 

Whitaker, Bill.  UFOs regularly spotted in restricted U.S. airspace, report on the phenomena due next month [television  episode segment]. 60 Minutes. Graham Messick, producer. 

Guns!  What does the Constitution say about them?  What does the Supreme Court say about what the Constitution says about them?  The Wonkers investigate.  Kat couldn't make it this week, so Joe, Jake, and Alan take up the case.  

Sources

The Supreme Court of the Unitesd States (2008). District of Columbia vs Heller (majority opinion and both dissents). 

Shusterman, Noah. 2018. What the Second Amendment Really Meant to the Founders. Washington Post. 

Murrill, Brandon J. 2018.  Modes of Constitutional Interpretation. Congressional Research Service.

Millhiser, Ian.  2021. The Supreme Court will hear a major Second Amendment case that could gut US gun laws. Vox.com.

The Wonkers finish up their talk on polarization in the U.S. by looking at the causes and mechanisms behind it, why it matters, and what (if anything) can be done about it.  

Sources

Klein, E. (2020). Why we're polarized. Simon and Schuster.

Mansbridge, J., & Martin, C. J. (2013). Negotiating agreement in politics. Washington DC: American Political Science Association.