I hate populism. I hate the empty, vacuous chatter that emanates from populist rabble.
“We hate big government spending. We want to protect America. We’re getting taxed to death!”
These simpletons are oblivious. What are the 3 largest components of the federal debt (quite apart from the profligate spending of the average citizen)?
1) Entitlement spending such as Medicare/Social Security
2) National Defense
3) Debt payments
Obviously we can’t just decide not to pay our debts on schedule. And will these rabid tea partiers be able to stand cuts in national defense? No, of course not (on this point, I actually agree with them.)
This leaves the govt insurance that medicare and social security amount to. Obviously the cretins have no wish to cut this either, what with their squeals for the government to “take its hands off my medicare.” Of course, it’s worthwhile to note that Medicare was greatly expanded by a Republican controlled congress under a Republican president.
As for their shrill screams about “socialism”…what did they want, for Wall Street, the heart, soul, and brain of American capitalism to collapse onto itself? Are they insane? It’s as if they wantonly desire to strive against the forces of order.
Right now, federal spending is 25% of the economy. Under Reagan it reached a high of…23.5% Of course we weren’t spending money on a stimulus or two major wars at the time so it makes one wonder.
As for the whole “taxed to death” bull shit…tax cuts were a third of the stimulus. Personal income taxes are at their lowest levels since the 1950’s.
As for our supposedly weak, anti-American President, not only did he inherit two wars, he actually expanded our military presence in Pakistan, Yemen, and Africa and signed off on a $700 billion defense budget. The military has so many applicants it’s turning people away. In the first 18 months of his Presidency, Obama ordered more drone strikes on terrorist and Taliban targets than his predecessor did in 8 years.
What is remotely socialist about this man? He has aggressively defended American interests abroad, through massive military force and saved the skeletal score of our capitalist system. But no one gets credit for staving off the terrible what-might-have been.
Of course, we have massive, underlying problems that have culminated in the present economic crisis. Since the 1970’s, when it became impossible to back the dollar with gold, when much of rest of the world began to catch up with us in prosperity, when we became dependent on foreign sources of energy, we, as a country, have been living beyond on our means. We have shifted from industrial based to debt-finance based growth.
It’s not the end of the world. It’s not like there’s anything to replace the dollar, and if we wished, foolishly, to persist on this past, the rest of the world would probably continue to foot our bill since there is really no other option (China has it’s own problems that in many ways exceed our own.)
I do not like the left. I detest its contempt for the greatness of the United States. I detest the way it grovels to foreign tyranny and certain European tendencies; I detest its warped view of history (of course the right distorts history in its own way) and its deluded fetishes of progressivism and “social justice”.
But the right, in its present incarnation is so…utterly repellent. Meanwhile, the National Review praises the putrescent drivel that is the Overton Window:
That? Oh, it’s just a visual representation of my father’s life philosophy. He thinks law and order, the Statue of Liberty, can only take a society so far. Because at some point law must be replaced by militarized force, the Colossus of Rhodes, for any true progress to be achieved.
Dear God.
