The Devil Made Me Do It

            So what is the price for the House's current political course? The answer is proving surprising. As State resources are cut off, numerous State services are going offline. An you thought trickle down economics didn't work.

            So who is being trickled down upon? Certainly the 9 million women and children receiving medical and food care. Less obvious is every home buyer. Dodd-Frank requires that income be verified by the IRS, which is closed.

            So one could argue that the "slimdown" is affecting very few people and causing little overall pain. If the "burn baby burn" crowd had their way and pulled the plug on Government, it might illuminate the reality that pretty much every American is a taker. Whether "assistance" is received in the form of health care or other personal "entitlements", or whether in the form of tax breaks and the jobs programs of corporate welfare. Cut off these funds, and you'll hear some real screaming. It won't just hurt "those other people". We're pretty much all addicted to some degree to the Government dole. [A Micro-Rant: I note that Verizon raked in $20 billion in profit but paid zero dollars in taxes last year. Strippers pay more taxes....and they get paid in cash...in the dark...but I regress] The bottom line is that Americans want much more government than they are willing to pay for.

            Stretching the social fabric of the nation seems to be brining out some new irrationalities, as evidenced by last weeks polls. They show that more than half of Republicans are Ted Cruz haters, the fellow that got them into this fine mess. The polls also show what they're calling a boomerang effect, i.e. whatever the Tea Party extremists are against, the rest of the country is now taking a shine to...like Big Government, and ObamaCare. So the Tea Party is turning out to be the ultimate beer goggles. They make everything look better.

            As an aside, I'm not clear why the ObamaCare rollout was deemed a failure by Fox News. The servers crashed when 8.7 million people tried to access them in for first 12 hours. When Apple rolls out a product and can't handle the flood of orders, that rollout is called a success. Moving on...

            The Values Voter Convention held last week featured Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, and Rick Santorum. Cruz was heckled by some in the crowd during his speech. Cruz accused them of being "paid political operatives helping President Obama." Ted doesn't yet realize that he is a paid political operative helping President Obama.

            I point out that the reason sane Republicans are acting nuts because of a few dozen extremists is why other organizations such as the NRA take extremist positions is there is a very loud and aggressive lunatic fringe to the right of the Tea Party waiting to overturn the established order. Look for the verb "primaried", as in "you just got primaried, you surrendering Tea Party scum."

            On the other side of the reactionary coin, there is a group of legislators, your elected officials, who call themselves debt limit deniers. For them, it would be wise to not pay our national bills. That's what voters get for electing someone without a background in law, economics, or history.

            For example, Florida Representative Ted Yoho, a former large animal vet, stated "It would increase the stability of international markets if we defaulted." And you know this how?

            When asked why he would adopt a position contrary to every domestic and international economist in his advocacy of default, Iowa Representative Steve King (the scarier Stephen King) replied that he didn't believe in international and domestic economists. I guess they're kind of like Santa Claus. When asked how he estimated the global economic impact of a default, he stated "Hey, I raised a family." Defense rests...

            Political extremists don't want to cut deals because those who don't think like them are the "enemy". They don't share our "values".

            This last week Values Voter Michele Bachmann advocated shipping arms to Syria. When asked if she was concerned they would fall into the hands of extremists. She replied that would simply hasten the end times and the return of the Lord Jesus.

            A similar mental conflating was apparently also practiced by Justice Antonin Scalia during an interview. Scalia called the devil a person and wondered why we don't see him all that much anymore. I point out that a corporation is also a person. Many people would regard Bachmann's views as loony but consider Scalia a serious intellectual. Not seeing much difference.

            Scalia went on to say, "the devil is all over the New Testament. What happened to him? He got wilier." There's a lot to be said for self-improvement.

            Scalia stated that people might consider him simple minded for his traditional views. He is "a fool for Christ". Whether one is a fool for Christ or coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs, we might keep them away from shaping public policy....or interpreting laws.

            I don't like this trend of bringing the devil into political discourse. Currently, people holding differing political views are not seen as fellow citizens, fellow Americans, the People. Opponents have become a dehumanized enemy, committed to destroy everything we hold dear. When opponents also become agents of evil, any evil act against them is justified.