Old Fears Hurt Less. Brace Yourself for More Utopia (GOP Style).

I dunno, I liked the GOP's old fears better. Commies, busing, flouridation, bra-less women, gays, Roe vs Wade, Medicare, weapons of mass destruction, firefighter unions, the United Nations, hordes of al qaeda lining up at the border of Mexico, fake birth certificates, Kenyan spies in the White House, Sharia Law in Colorado...

I ask you, dear friend: what fun is a party of paranoid rage-aholics when they're yelling about debt-to-GDP ratios?

None of these people ever gave a damn about deficits until the line formed on the Right. Now, according to them, the deficit will kill us all unless we do exactly as they say, immediately.

Been there, done that. There's always a lot to be afraid of, but you could make a nice living betting that the real crisis and the GOP-manufactured one will never be the same. Wonder what odds Jimmy the Greek would have given?

Default on the debt will hurt us lots more than any other plan, including (obviously) more stimulus spending.

How about this: we turn back the clock to when Bush inherited a surplus, undo things he said would lead to prosperity but brought us instead to the poorhouse, and start over. His illegal war in Iraq over weapons he said would kill us all, but didn't exist? Gone. His debunked "trickle down" tax policy? Pffft. A memory. His million-mile fence and hi-tech attack on fruit pickers? Suspended. His subsidies to Oil companies who already have more cash than they know what to do with? Gone. Kaput.

This entire crisis is merely the beginning of the endgame of a long-established Right-Wing plan for society known as "Starve the Beast." Please look it up and learn. It is not a new crisis. It isn't even a crisis. It's Republican Utopia, once again breaching the horizon, heading our way.

Thoughts from the GTL Manifesto (a work in progress), Part I.

When you have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, it isn't "asking for help" or "relying on government to do what you should do for yourself." It is a free people banding together to solve problems which time and experience have shown not to be fixable by individuals. I could see reviling a monarchy, or a dictatorship, or an oligarchy, or a communist politburo -- but in America, to revile the government is to revile ourselves.

If shameless capitalists have co-opted the government -which they have - that is all the more reason to get involved, vote sensibly, hold politicians accountable, and pay attention to the functioning of government not only in the US but around the world. Perfect it so that it runs efficiently and protects the citizens whose ancestors saw fit to fight and die to create it.

There are bad governments, yes. But there are good ones too, and ones which are in trouble and need the help of the citizens. Many, many of our foremothers and forefathers died so that our government would live. If you want to shit on it, go ahead, but don't for a moment imagine that your opinion is either morally or intellectually superior. It is just an opinion, and many people equal to you in insight and intelligence do not agree with it.

Forming a more perfect union requires people who care to make it better and are not lazy or cowardly, and not those like Grover Norquist, who famously declared he wants to starve the government of revenue, until it's been weakened enough to "drag it into the bathroom and drown it with [his] bare hands."