We get a proper sense of play pretend politics when we take a gander at the conservative "we want small government" canard.It could also be called a red herring, ruse, or false premise based "argument".
It was scripted long ago in the fairy tale about Goldilocks and the Three Bears; a bedtime story they conflate with the size of government.
You know the routine, "too small" for me, "too big" for me, or "just my size"?
The obvious itself solves this problem, too small is not good, too big is not good, but the proper size to serve the people is where the merit is.
That is why the U.S. Constitution mandates a census every 10 years; it is to adjust the size of government.
It gives the states a number of representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives, based upon that census.
It seems axiomatic that the size of government periodically needs to be adjusted to fit the constantly changing size of the population it serves.
The static size argument, a.k.a. the one size fits all argument, is based on civic ignorance.
The bloviating that "small government conservatives" err on and on about would have been cleansed from their ill informed understanding with a lowly Civics 101 class down at the local community college.
The state governments can likewise adjust their "size" (services, utilities, etc.) to match the needs of their own state residents, based on that periodic census, and state-specific factors.
The corporations went through a fad, based on this cognitive worm hole some time back, when they got into "downsizing", "upsizing", and "right sizing".
When the curtain closed it was obvious that it was all a farce brought on by greedy corporate marauders, who were deciding how many good jobs to whack from a corporation after a "hostile takeover", then suck the blood from the stock of that company when it temporarily surged following their false declaration that they had done a good thing.
When the stock fell after they had plundered the place, when the dust settled, quite often many faithful employees and stockholders were unfairly harmed.
Another thing we have mentioned lately is that when neoCons use the word "government" they do not include the military.
It appears that this is evidence of an emotional insecurity of some sort, which has its genesis in malfunctioning cognition.
Like a small duckling "adopting" a cat or dog as its parent.
When these individuals transferred their subconscious parental recognition dynamics toward government, instead of using academics they use dysfunctional feelings which corrupted their understanding.
This psychological dysfunction in their cognition ends up misshaping their vision into nonsensical Sarah Palinisms.
Hypocrisy is another side effect of their lack of proper adjustment, because they preach "fiscal conservatism" without knowing its meaning; their understanding having been warped, the academic meaning of fiscal conservatism does not carry through.
To them "fiscal conservatism" means "rout regulations", "shut down domestic programs", and "inflate the size of the military" wildly out of proportion.
Their psychological dysfunction then brings the inevitable we have been suffering through: financial disasters and the loss of U.S. reputation.
Their personality causes a response, to the damage they caused to millions, not unlike the comic character "Gilly" on Saturday Night Live: a timid "sahwie".
I for one am sick and tired of their "psycho talk", as Ed Shultz likes to call it.
"To them "fiscal conservatism" means "rout regulations", "shut down domestic programs", and "inflate the size of the military" wildly out of proportion."
ReplyDeleteConservatives' real genius was implementing all this at the behest of the very constituencies who were harmed most by such policies. They did this mostly by making politics a referendum on American values; once again, no small feat, as their moral values were more often than not just as despicable as the Dems'.
Republican success since 1980 should be a centerpiece of all MBA marketing curricula, as for all their electoral successes, they're record governing is unqualified abysmal. Of course, what that says about the Dems is obvious. These guys are nothing so much as a comedy team, taking turns playing straight man to the other's buffoonery.
disaffected,
ReplyDeleteI don't know that I would equate "genius" with deceitful cunning, nevertheless, with English all things are possible.
That they did "all this at the behest of the very constituencies who were harmed most by such policies" morphs it into deceitful cunning and away from genius to me.
Like Bob Dylan says, "they are narrowing the distance between right and wrong" ...
I would say they are accomplished at deceitful cunning but that they are not geniuses at all.
"Terd Blossom" (a.k.a. Karl Rove) is the quixotic Bush II glorified example of that to me.
The meaning of "Republican success" then is modified as well, since it can be translated equally as well into "American political and economic disaster" which, yes, is still a victory for them so long as they "win".
Until winning at governing after elections takes priority over winning an election but losing / failing at government afterwards, our politics will be judged as whether or not one can convince the people that a "terd" is really a "blossom".
Which is just another example of the plague of dementia, for which no neoCon seems to want to develop a vaccime (memetic term).
Right and wrong in a crony casino capitalist market economy is simply defined as winning and losing, with winning being defined as making money (the more the better) and/or increasing access and/or influence to the corporate/governmental levers of power from which the money springs.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between now and 30 years ago is that then, wealthy corporate pigs were content to lobby the government to leave them alone so that they could rape and pillage the private sector. Having accomplished all that, they turned to the real prize, the US government itself.
Now they've successfully infiltrated the government with the intent to loot the federal treasury for every last remaining dime. No need to point out the obvious fact that that's been an unmitigated and ongoing bonanza. So much so that even the Dems had to get in on the action.
This process will continue until the collapse, after which the rich motherfuckers will double down on their winnings by selling us former government services as private sector products, all with appropriately obscene markups of course.
A brilliant strategy in hindsight, and it really didn't take them all that long to execute either. What happens then is still anybody's guess, but I'm betting they'll find even more ways to milk the status quo in the aftermath of the US empire. That's what they do.
They are too big to jail, as Dredd's Wednesday's post showed.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is how the "small government" conservatives want it.
"Narrowing the distance between right and wrong" is spot on Dredd (and Dylan).