Response to SF

Has anybody noticed that the loyal opposition to Our Dear Leader is, well, a little ... um ... unhinged? And not so loyal, for that matter.

I have. I'm maybe not as worried as you, and maybe more worried in some ways. Details follow:


Early on Rush went on record saying that he wanted Obama to fail.

I don't understand the outrage over this. I would assume Limbaugh wants Obama to fail. He is fundamentally opposed to most of how Obama wants to go about addressing most issues. The question is does Limbaugh want Obama to fail to make people's lives better, or does he want Obama to fail to increase the imbalanced tax burden, to fail to be able to fire "private" CEOs, etc? Those are totally different wishes, for Obama and for America. I would assume that Rachel Maddow wanted George Bush to fail to lower taxes, to deploy more troops, from time to time and whatever else. And that would have been okay, and different from wanting him to fail to make us safer, and to make people more well-off.


More astonishing was the three or four prominent republicans who publically criticized Rush and were obliged to issue groveling apologies shortly afterwards.

This I am honestly surprised about. I don't think it's scary, per se, for a prominent, private citizen to drive the direction of political parties, technically these are private institutions, but I don't necessarily love the idea that old-school Senators need to apologize to Rush Limbaugh. It kind of makes me horrified for the Senators.


Teabagging.... It's hard to put too much weight on this, given that only like a couple hundred thousand people showed up nationwide, but it's worth a passing mention.

I'm surprised to hear you put it this way. I considered a few hundred thousand to be a massive, nearly unprecedented number of people for a mid-year tax protest. I think it's entirely remarkable. I also have some sympathy. Defenders of the Obama tax plan point out that it lowers taxes for most Americans. I have no ability to examine this claim, tax plans are too complicated for me to know what that even means, but on the face of it, the top-line tax does seem to lower taxes on 95% of Americans. That's nice, but if you keep taxes the same, raise them, or even lower them a tad, but you further imbalance them, I have a problem with that. Today, just about 60% of Americans pay a 5% or lower tax rate. Increasingly imbalancing that is worrisome to me. I can't tell you what social, political, economic, or military effects are coming exactly from that, but I do know I'm honestly, and honorably worried about it. I do know one thing for sure, based on this, and it's not rocket science, it's axiomatic: a larger and larger proportion of the voting public is getting government for free. Roads, police, military, well-fare, NASA, PBS, clean water, vaccinations, cheap milk, and on and on and on, are costing the average person nothing. When that happens, I wonder if people can maintain a good perspective on what it means to pay for public goods. To what isn't someone entitled when they get all of those massive vitals for free?


Michelle Bachmann has expressed concerns about a "one world currency". Yeah, she's a loon in the best of times, but this comes from somewhere. She didn't invent this slightly paranoiac concern out of thin air.

No, she didn't: "One world currency" is part of the Pre-Millenial Dispensationalist movement. It's code for them, in their delusional rantings about the anti-christ, the rapture and redemption, one world currency and eventually one-world government is a sign that the anti-christ is rising and that the rapture is imminent. It is indeed insane, but the Left Behind novels are best sellers. This is a fascinating topic. I read a blog about this movement (from a fundamentalist Evangelical) and he makes a scary study of Republican politics and how they are courting this crew of crazies. Bush and McCain have both used very specific language--codes like this one world currency--that means little or nothing to you and me but sends a clear signal to this crazy PMD group. In Bush's case I think it's unclear how much he bought into it. In McCain's case I am sure it was a part of his speeches but he may not even have known that he was using key words for these people. Anyway, they may be losing their grip.


The word "socialism" has been thrown around so much in reference to Obama and his policies that it's actually lost all meaning.

I don't actually argue that it's losing meaning, except to say that maybe it's just a case where we're getting comfortable with reality. Europe isn't afraid of using the word, and neither should we be. Socialism is a real force, and it's a smooth gradation from theoretical logical endpoints of no socialism on one end to total socialism on the other. Neither endpoint is possible, but we exist on that continuum and have for our entire history. We are socialist to some degree. I think it's legitimate to worry about how socialist we are, and to believe that there is too much socialism. You and I agree that it is not useful to use it as a scare tactic or just to call names.


Speaking of fascism,

My main problem is that I have the same concerns as so many right-wing commentators, but they are crazy and I am not. So yes, I worry about Margot and Ethan's safety, but I don't think all of my neighbors are pedophile rapists. There's a real and important difference there. In that same vein, I believe the government *is* too involved in business.

Glenn Beck is amoral. I mean that in the most precise way. I think he has divorced himself from morality entirely in favor of capturing the Limbaugh audience on television. So I don't think he's crazy, unless it is crazy to spend your professional life orthogonal to morals. Which, when I phrase it that way, is indeed crazy.

By the by, I happen to think the Maddows and Olbermans of the world are being pulled out to the middle of the deep-end as well. Neither is Beckensian quite yet, but their reaction to him is pushing them in that direction and it's polarizing and frustrating. I liked Maddow just a year ago, and now I can't listen to her anymore than I can listen to Limbaugh.


Oh, sorry, it was the Governor of Texas [talking secession]

I have no idea what to make of this. I am tempted to say that a governor needs to not joke about revolution. It's just too provocative. You know one of the restrictions on free speech is when your speech can immediately incite violence. Every state in the union has a lunatic militia fringe. I think governors may just have too much podium to make jokes like this. Reagan legitimately thought he was off-mike when he talked about bombing. He rightly admitted he should have been more careful, but mistakes are different than intentionally public jokes.


Ohio Militia Leader Calls for “Armed Million Man March” on Washington

Right, this is too close to real.


Then came Pennsylvania. Richard Poplawski deliberately murdered three police officers...

I wouldn't read too much in this in particular, this may just be an isolated crazy person.


I'm honestly a little worried about this... What's next? Where is this going?

I think it ramps down from here. As we get further into the administration and we continue to enjoy our lifestyle, people will calm down. Bad economic times always ramp this stuff up. If we turn the economy around this ramps down, then the rational, stable population will win out again. It's when things stay bad for long, long periods of time that this stuff really boils over. This is just the first signs of things that *could* happen.