Democrats believe that politics is about how much you can promise to give away, regardless of whether it makes any economic sense or violates justice. Yes, they really do believe they err by doing less.
"Wait!" I wanted to object. "That's completely irrational!"
I selected and copied and hit the reply button. I pasted the copied text into a quote. Fingers poised over the keyboard, I... Well, I... I reread it. I started to sketch one of my usual snide remarks about leftist extremists and/or socialist and/or statist parasites.
I do manage to stay on message fairly well; unfortunately, that's up there with being really good at counting angels dancing on pin heads.
I remembered moving from Iowa to Michigan when I was seven years old. My father sat me down with a map and showed me the roads we were going to take, the new state we were going to live in. He talked about the new house, the new school I'd be going to, new places we'd go and sights we'd see. Some of that was interesting in a mild way; at the heart of the matter, however, I didn't want to go to a completely different state.
The big move worked out all right. I noticed my mother never really made the move. She mourned Iowa beef and Iowa corn and Iowa this, that, and umpty-dozen other things all the rest of her life. I'm sure it didn't occur to either of my parents to go anywhere else on vacation. My father interested himself in fishing and later skiing, and drove all over Michigan. I had a good time in the Boy Scouts, and learned considerably more than I noticed at the time. Apart from hitchhikking trips and brief moves, I stayed in Michigan through my twenties, then went to Wisconsin when unemployment in upper Michigan crossed the 35% mark. I still miss Michigan now and then. Both my parents are buried there. My brother continues to get by without actually working for a living there. I sometimes flirt with the idea of driving back that way on one of my trips, though I've ended up becoming a westerner at heart. Realistically speaking, Michigan is a failure. $.90 of every tax dollar collected in the upper peninsula, for example, ends up being poured down the drain of southeastern Michigan: Detroit, in short. Unemployment is beyond counting. Anyone with ambition gets up and goes. The governor is still taxing and squandering for all she's worth. It's become a monument to the abject failure of so-called "affirmative action" and so-called "welfare." The current resident of the White House has handed uncounted billions to the United Auto Workers in the name of "bailing out" two out of the three American car companies: billions that aren't being accounted for nor ever will be.
What's all that got to do with the price of pickles in Pakistan?
It's occurred to me I may have overlooked the obvious: while I've been complaining the leftist extremists are trying to turn America into a larger, slightly more prosperous East Germany, they've already done it. I've remarked a time or two this isn't the same country I was born in. That sounded snappy. I just didn't realize it was true.
longeyes wrote:
Yes, they really do believe they err by doing less.
Yep. They're as sure even more needs to be done as the door to door Jesus jumpers who believe they're a special exception to the "No Soliciting" sign immediately below my door bell button. They sincerely do believe we don't have enough government. They sincerely do believe we need still more—and more and more and more—government intervention.
I've been thinking all this time they're trying to change the rules. In fact, they've already moved the entire country out from under us. They couldn't move us, so they moved the whole country.
