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Friday, March 26, 2010

For Me But Not For Thee

Political Wire:
A new Bloomberg Poll finds that more than 90% of Tea Party backers say the United States "is verging more toward socialism than capitalism, the federal government is trying to control too many aspects of private life and more decisions should be made at the state level." At the same time, 70% of those who sympathize with the Tea Party "want a federal government that fosters job creation."

Last August we laughed at the "disconnect" leading so many protestors misinformed and terrorized by Fox News broadcasts to rant in Town Hall meetings about how they don't want a horrible government healthcare program to interfere with their Medicare. Here in California we have grown well-accustomed to anti-tax zealots who scream for government to get off their backs and then demand that their crappy McMansions be protected from wildfires and eroding cliff-faces by first responders and public engineers. Now we discover that Mike Vanderboegh, the anti-government militia-booster who called for people to protest government healthcare services by throwing bricks through windows himself lives off of government disability checks. For generations the most vociferous ideological opposition to the welfare state and "economic planning" has been voiced by those who were always also equally vociferous in their support of ever expanding defense budgets that functionally planned the economy and stealthed endless welfare entitlements to incumbent interests.

There is no anti-governmentality as such, there are simply those whose anti-democratic mentality would restrict public welfare and legal protections to themselves and those with whom they parochially identify to the cost of everyone else.

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