Here’s the thing, E.J.…even if roughly a quarter of the people in this country are instinctively anti-government and opposed categorically to anything Washington does or proposes to do…they still tend to stay home and vent quietly as long as a Republican is in the White House. The second a Democrat enters the White House, the black helicopter-talk ramps up and the charges of socialism go out. Suddenly, congresspeople are inundated by nuts phoning them, writing them, showing up at their town hall meetings with guns and shouting batty nonsense they’ve learned from right-wing radio hosts. And it can be argued somewhat convincingly, I think, that even Poppy Bush aroused this kind of reaction when he raised taxes. He was no longer a Republican after he did that, so it was okay for Buchanan and Perot to gather up the nuts and run for the crown.
Obama’s getting a couple extra doses of crazy because he’s black and he inherited a terrible economy. But there’s a reason that lunatics come out of the woodwork any time the rich get taxed. The rich people pay for it.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
And not just through the obvious Dick Army projects. One wonders who is covering Orly Taitz’s bills as she goes birthering away.
I was thinking the same thing. E.J. says that you can’t put the whole thing on racism, but if there is some core belief in small government, then I have the following question:
These people are shouting about the amount of debt and all of that. Where were they during the Bush years when we were cutting taxes and starting wars? And then to top it off, they nearly drove the economy into a depression? Where were all of these people then? As best I can tell, they weren’t making any noise at all – for some reason they were happy with the status quo then.
I suppose you could argue that the nutters are are own version of fascists – they are generally happy when one of theirs is in charge. But once out of power they use every trick in the book to rabble rouse – all in an attempt to discredit the Democrats so that they can get another chance at wrecking the economy.
They don’t believe in small government. That’s the misunderstanding. They believe that the only role government should have is national defense and criminal justice. And they believe that any government that taxes is too big. As long as you don’t tax them, you’re OK. These folks are not shouting about the debt as much as the size of the domestic expenditures in government. And a lot of that is motivated by their perceptions of what ethnic groups (certainly not them) are benefiting from domestic policy. And most of it is reactive nonthinking, so don’t expect consistency.
The folks that are funding this believe in national security, enforceable contracts, police powers and low taxes. That formula gives them the maximum latitude to get richer without competition. They don’t call that wrecking the economy. But when they need bailouts, only government can avert a financial meltdown.
These two groups are not the same; they are symbiotic at best and the second is parasitical on the first at worst. The current situation is an example of worst.
That’s EXACTLY what it’s about. Even if some of them legitimately care, that’s not the point of the matter. Conservatism in America as we currently know it is racist in its roots.
America’s long standing unwillingness to create a decent social safety net–one of the strong pillars of the progressive movement–is tied to the fact that many white Americans just didn’t want their tax dollars to go to racial minorities.
It’s baked in; you cannot have one movement without the other. Socialism, communism…conflate them with segregation and acceptance:
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Except union contracts. That’s Socialism. That’s bad.
But you don’t understand the position of these folks.
Union contracts are not contracts. It’s easy. See.
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See my comment and diary last August …
Armey Resigns Law Firm After Negative PR
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) is resigning from DLA Piper law firm amid a wave of negative attention his grassroots organization, Freedom Works, has drawn for helping to organize protesters at health care town hall meetings with members of Congress.
In an interview with POLITCO Armey said that he was concerned about the media scrutiny the health care protests were drawing to the firm he has been associated with since retiring from Congress.
See my diary – FreedomWorks and Armey’s Corporate Clients
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
It’s definitely not a new idea….
more than 100 years ago, indistrialist Jay Gould is alleged to have said that he could pay 1/2 of the Working Class to kill the other half…
Nothing much as changed since then, IMO, despite the Progressive legislation passed in the intervening time… You can still pay workers to kill other workers… Might not be obvious, might not be here, but it’s happening…