The unbearable incoherency of being Republican

Over at Investor's Business Daily, there's an editorial that can only be described as deranged:

Is Obama 'Dangerously Close To Totalitarianism'?

But even better are the comments, the best of which is this one:

Michael Totten · Top Commenter · Proprietor at RED DOG ARMS

read this now and act...or read the headlines when the Congress and the Supreme Court are dissolved! I do believe we need a small committee running the country for two years...two years during which a true citizen government would be formed...as in 1789.....then regular pres. elections would be held with single term limits and congress would be elected by their peers for one year terms....

Mikey is so afraid that Obama will dissolve the institutions of government and throw away the Constitution that he wants to... dissolve the institutions of government and throw away the Constitution. 

Perhaps he'll name his "small committee" something like the Central Committee. Or perhaps Reich Committee would roll off the tongue a little easier.

This is open sedition. Fair enough; Mikey is free to argue for the elimination of democracy and his right to argue. Certainly the hippies and the Wobblies wanted to undo the foundation of the State. But even in their most drug-addled state, the hippies understood that they were preaching revolution; that they sought to undo the social contract. They were not patriots; they did not preach "my country right or wrong."

But Mikey probably has a hat with that blazoned on it. One can just hear him explaining, "it was necessary to destroy the Constitution in order to save it."

Obama's eager to ge the conversation started

"We are going to have a big and important debate in this country, and I cannot wait."

Obama eager for campaign

A national conversation

Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee, and just as I predicted, this means the election will be a referendum on Reaganomics. Mitt's wealth (or rather, how he got that wealth) made that inevitable. Last week Obama got the ball rolling with his speech, and here's evidence that the conversation is being had:

Today’s speech had less historical sweep than the past two and focused more narrowly on the point that has separated the two parties: the primacy of low taxes for the rich. Obama made a fairly simple argument. The Republican theory that low taxes (especially for high earners) is the essential ingredient in economic growth has been tested thoroughly over the last two decades. First Republicans insisted that Bill Clinton’s tax hikes on the rich would destroy growth and then that the George W. Bush tax cuts would create a boom. Both predictions utterly failed. (Obama did not mention that the Bush tax cuts remain in effect right now, and so that to whatever degree we blame policy for the meager growth since he took office, tax cuts ought to share the blame.) And yet, he noted, Republicans have shown not the slightest trace of intellectual humility, no inkling whatsoever that they ought to rethink supply-side economics.

Obama frames the economic choice

I was kind of hoping for Rick Santorum, because that would have lead to a conversation over the role of religion in politics. But as I have recently been reminded, every conversation with a conservative these days ends up in religion.

The reason is simple: by the numbers, Reaganomics has failed. Therefore the only defense left to it is ideological; if we just double-down, hold the line, have faith, then our earnest dedication will be rewarded and it will work! Also, it will work twice as good as we said! Except for all the naysayers, doomsayers, critics, skeptics, traitors, and liberals: it won't work for them, because they don't deserve it.

If this coming national conversation sticks to facts and figures, Reaganomics (and all that goes with it, such as an unfettered faith in unfettered free markets) may finally be retired. Note that Mittens already gave a speech in which he suggested that unregulated free markets don't always yield the optimal solution.

Nothing would be better for the world than the destruction of this selfish, farcical economic fantasy. Because as America goes, so goes the world.

It's all Reagan's fault

Chris Mooney asserts that the Republican distrust of science started with Reagan.

Conservatives vs Science

More specifically, he demonstrates that there was only really a decline in public trust in science among conservatives in the period from 1974 to 2010 (and among those with high church attendance, but these two things are obviously tightly interrelated).

In the interests of balance, I of course would welcome a contrasting viewpoint about Liberalism.

But here's the thing. Everybody (even conservatives) agrees the last 30 years, things have gotten worse. But the last 30 years have had more conservative politics, not less. And despite all that conservating, social attitudes have continued to shift leftwards. Gay marriage is just one example of a social position that has shown dramatic change over the last ten years.

The current conservative response seems to be to assert the conservative policies we have adopted via Reagan and both Bushes were not conservative enough, and we need even more conservatism. But the amount of conservatism being proposed is far more than even Reagan dreamed of.

At some point you have to ask: if you are in a hole, and it keeps getting darker, are you sure you're digging in the right direction?

Another great thing Obama did

GM CEO resigns at Obama's behest

Fancy that. A guy mismanages his company so bad it has to get bailed out, and because of that, he loses his job.

Sounds like good old fashioned personal responsibility at work.

I remember watching a Japanese CEO resign in disgrace (including tears of humiliation) because his company had accidentally mixed AIDS-contaminated blood with clean blood. I remember thinking at the time that we would never see an American CEO take that kind of responsibility.

And now we have, and it was done so quietly I missed it the first time around. Probably because Obama knew that the Foxheads would spin it as "government intrusion in private business," ignoring the fact that it was government money doing the bailing and thus government who was entitled to set the terms of restructuring.

Or maybe Obama's just so busy doing good things that little ones like this slip under the radar.

You read it here first

Obama is going down in history as one of the greatest presidents of all time.

I am staking out that claim here on this blog so that in 50 years everyone will know just how right I was. Of course, I'm not the only one:

The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama
He’s gotten more done in three years than any president in decades. Too bad the American public still thinks he hasn’t accomplished anything.

Paul Glastris follows that claim up with seven pages of accomplishments, just two of which - ACA and DADT - I have already argued will seal Obama's place in history.

But to be fair, it's not just Republicans who don't realize how much Obama has accomplished; plenty of Democrats are equally unimpressed. But then, majorities of Americans believe in angels, demons, miracles, signs, and wonders. And not evolution.

Meanwhile, Arizona is being so depressing I can't even bring myself to link to the news. Suffice to say I am doubly glad to have rescued my wife and daughter from that place.

Final edits on Kassa

My final edits for THE KASSA GAMBIT were accepted tonight. Woot! Now I can forget about it and move on to the next one.

Editing certainly improved the book, but I hate doing it. I try to write from an emotional trajectory, and when I sit down to look at an individual paragraph, I usually can't remember what I'm supposed to be feeling at that moment, so I don't know what text will fit.

On the other hand it's great to have someone else helping with it. Stacy caught a few time-line mistakes, and whacked at least one embarrassingly overwrought sentence. Apparently I was a little too caught up in the emotion of that scene.

I've been thinking about a Prudence sequel, but right now I'm working on the dog book (Sirius). I don't know how it will pan out - the book has a tricky landing at the end and I am not sure I can stick it. We'll see.