Tea Parties, the GOP, Libertarians, GOP Reformers, Etc.
This weekend’s most talked about essay: Mark Lilla on the Tea Party phenomenon, and American politics generally. I respond to it here, defending the notion of a more libertarian GOP against Mr. Lilla and the Grand New Party project of Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat, sympathetic as I am to its concerns and some of its proposed policy solutions. It’s been awhile since I read the whole book, so I hope I’ve been fair to its arguments — and I’m eager to see what commenters here think about the whole post. As I noted over at True/Slant, the core policy challenges that Grand New Party so astutely identified are the same ones central to the projects of David Frum and Jim Manzi, though all are working from different angles and reaching different if sometimes compatible conclusions.
personal animosity toward the President himself (racially tinged in some regions) stoked by the right-wing media
The personal animosity is more stoked by the fact the President is a public intellectual, an elite AND a black man, than by race alone. Obama is the avatar of Jefferson’s natural aristoi ….the more he displays “talent” and “virtue” the more the white conservative christian grievance movement hates him. Their leadership promised them (along with 50 years of racebaiting and IQbaiting) that Obama could never happen.
tant pis
And political affiliation is really social leveling.
The leveling the right/conservative affiliation offers in compensation is negative social capital for IQ and education….positive social capital for “commonsense” and “godsmartness”(religiosity) …conservative merit values…..in a sense the right is compensating for “intelligence” as a skill in a meritocracy. Conservatism is anti-intellectual and anti-elite.
The left/liberal affiliation offers social capital payoff in the form of IQ and education positive valuation, and offers social leveling on SES and environmental factors.
Thing is, neither affiliation can level the genes……yet. ;)
Its more game theory…rubberband theory actually….consumers are drawn to the game that offers them the best skillups for their playstyle.
— matoko_chan · May 10, 04:01 AM · #
The regulatory capture by the bankster class.
The fact that they are skimming the productive potential of the entire nation into their rent-seeking too-big-to-fail über-leveraged schemes.
The fact that Congress of either party is now the best government money can buy. So the bankster class can’t be thrown off by the market. The crony class in government protects them, not to mention thousands of full time professional lobbyists.
The fact that the government can’t throw them off either, because the bought political leadership keeps appointing revolving-door former-banksters to every administrative role. Every attempt to break them up is aborted and diluted away.
Look at Europe. The depression that the banksters caused, pushed the governments over the edge into runaway deficit-spending. Any bailouts compound it. Now the same bankster cliques carry out hit-and-run raids on the treasuries of the weaker governments. It is indeed a wolfpack – hyenas, jackals, call it what you will. It will not rest until every surplus dime/eurocent is fed into the bankster’s loanshark racket.
Even those without personal debt, are deeply in debt, through their bankrupt governments. As the entire Western world is reduced to debt-peonage. This is the New Feudalism, 21st-century style.
— Keid A · May 10, 06:43 AM · #
lawl, Spock is right…its the bankstah playstyle.
Not a pretty picture is it? The bankstahs in a predator pack preying on the great dumb red and blue herds of Western grazers, while a few cognizant superrationals try to fend them off.
Evolution in action.
— matoko_chan · May 10, 12:03 PM · #
Really, who pushed for the CRA revisions, and the elimination in standards in lendings from banks, ACORN, and a certain able young attorney from the windy city, Of course the banks accomodated themselves to the scam, creating a truly post modern product, the subprime CDS.Who blocked reform of the intrument in part on the cheap demagoguery that matoko entertains, Franks and Dodd, who were rewarded for their inaction, the preceding plus Biden, Obama, Conrad et al, and who were then bailed out by TARP, the same banksters. Willie Sutton was obviously in the wrong side of the business
— ian cormac · May 10, 01:25 PM · #
ian-the-aristotelian-frog, look beyond your local mud puddle.
Take the bird view.
See the world as it is.
— matoko_chan · May 10, 02:15 PM · #
“See the world as it is.”
screwed, broke and unloved?
— mike farmer · May 10, 04:18 PM · #
Nice almost hiku from Zen Master Matoko.
— cw · May 10, 04:52 PM · #