Dog Bites Man!

From the newspaper of record:

The 2008 financial crisis was an “avoidable” disaster caused by widespread failures in government regulation, corporate mismanagement and heedless risk-taking by Wall Street, according to the conclusions of a federal inquiry.

What a big surprise! We needed a 10-person elite Federal panel to figure it all out. In this modern age of incompetence and conservatopian fantasy, only a six panelists could see what was written in big bolded text. The others, meaning the Republicans, are doing the cockroach scurry blaming everyone except Wall Street's giant vampire squids.

Why Liberals Are Wrong

There are false equivalences and then there are false equivalences. "Both sides do it," is widely known. Less so -- but equally wrong -- is the idea that conservative thought or morality is a mirror image of liberal ideology.

Krugman falls into the trap here

One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty

Lawrence Davidson of Reader Supported News fails here (my italics):

The United States is, once more, increasingly a house divided. It is not divided by "slavery agitation" though some of the issues have their roots in that era. It is divided over fundamental differences in the meaning of the nation's Constitution and the very nature of government. These differences bring with them feelings that are just as emotional and inherently divisive as was slavery.

There are a growing number of Americans who no longer believe in the modern interpretation and application of US Constitution. They insist that the way Constitutional interpretation has evolved over the past half-century is a betrayal of true American principles. Many of these Americans are apparently enamored of the 19th century outlook that the only government that is legitimate is that which sees to the police, the military and the law. Everything else should be a private concern. If you tax them for programs that have to do with social equity or economic justice (even in its pitifully weak form), or even to maintain public functions such as education, transportation and social services, they consider it theft and imagine that they are subject to a new tyranny. In addition, many of them are not willing to go along with any election that might run counter to their outlook. Some are very close to advocating sedition, and a few are obviously already gunning for their imagined "tyrants."

Krugman and Davidson are looking down into a cesspool and think they see dirtied reflections of themselves. No, they are looking at a cesspool.

Let's start with Prof. Krugman who says that conservatives have a moral code different from liberals. Well, he is correct only in the sense that nothing is different from something. Morality requires thought. An ability to evaluate different ideas. Training a dog to behave politely -- to sit on command, come when called, and walk without tugging at the leash -- does not make the dog moral. It just makes the dog behave as its master chooses. The same dog could next be trained to snarl, bark, and bite, and would do so without contemplating moral distinctions between the two types of behavior. So goes American conservatism.

Davidson also assumes too much. Have you ever talked to Tea Partiers? They are indiscriminate ignoramuses unable to answer the simplest questions about their beliefs. Remember, they are the same people who are frightened of government involvement in Medicare and Social Security. The same people who can't understand that investing excess Social Security funds in government securities is good and reasonable. Self-righteous patriots who enthusiastically support our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but can find neither country on a map. Think of all those polls showing American's staggering lack of knowledge about history, science, politics and geography. The worst of the worst, the most ignorant of the ignorant, are the conservative base.

For years they have tried to make legitimate their gun fetishism by shouting "Second amendment. Second amendment." Knowing one-half of one tenth of the Bill of Rights is not constitutional scholarship. Nor is expanding their parroted phrase list to include "original intent." These are people who are wrong by a full century when asked to put the Civil War on a time line. People who confuse the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution. People who can't name the three branches of federal government, and can't explain how the US government differs from that of Britain. Michele Bachmann -- congresswoman, Tea Party call girl, and Presidential aspirant -- goes deep stupid when talking about slavery's legal history.

The right wingers can't tell the difference between intellectual conversation and speaking in tongues. Enough.

Madness

Yo, Republicans!

This is one of yours, not one of ours. He is a registered Republican. He really believes the right wing blather about returning to the gold standard and government mind control and self-protection through grammatical absurdities.

Forget all the pundits debating vitriolic talk, climates of hatred, and nudge-nudge wink-wink incitements to violence. We must instead realize that ideology built entirely of lies and cruelty can succeed only by attracting this guy and thousands like him. Who else is going to buy that crap? Who else can be goaded into sputtering apoplectic rage about a heath care law that guarantees insurance coverage to children despite pre-existing conditions, allows parents to keep their children insured until they are 26, and repairs the "doughnut hole" in Medicare drug payments? For crying out loud, the designated hitter rule is more controversial. Except to this guy and his Play-Doh-brained ilk.