TheHeretic
Posts: 19100
Joined: 3/25/2007
From: California, USA
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Those familiar with my posts, and the views I express here will already know of my thoughts regarding the "lifer" public employee class, how the mentality becomes institutionalized, the status quo becomes the one true way, and the methodology becomes more important than the mission ("You can't do anything, until you've had an approval on the 27b\6"). We wind up with deadwood, anchoring a chair, punching the clock for paycheck and pension, having long ago lost any perspective on just who it is they work for.
For all his philosophical outrage, the author does eventually tell the truth about why he really took his retirement, and presumably why he has written this in the style he has chosen (see my earlier post in the thread). While he may have worked in the GOP division of the paperwork production offices of Capitol Hill, I don't see much conservatism in the framing of his views, either
While I certainly agree with Mr. Lofgren on the incompetence of the Democrats, there are a few things I think are worth questioning, and disagreeing with.
He starts with the fight over the debt ceiling, and finds it scandalous that the Congress has done this 87 times since WWII, without a ripple, but this time it was an issue. Just how deep in the bowels of the system must he have been to see 63 seats change hands, yet have no understanding that the crazy spending and debt was a key element driving that wave?
He laments how "Obamacare," has become a pejorative term to attack an unpopular policy, and uses that as an example of the awful tactics the Republicans use to demonize the opposition. Given that he is budget guy, whose career would have started during Reagan's first term, why is his criticism not tempered by how the Democrats used "Reaganomics" in precisely the same way, and continue doing so to this day?
He claims there are only three real planks of Republicans, and that the rest is just window dressing.
First, that the Republicans care only about the interests of the rich. No. If we want to view things that way, we would have to say that the Repubs care only about the interests of the working rich, the ones still out there producing, building and manufacting, while the Dems only look at the cares and hobbies of the old money and idle rich, the limousine liberals, who step over the homeless man, and quiet the guilt by thinking, "there ought to be a government program." Yes, the horror of Republicans wanting the tax rates low for everyone, while the Democrats prefer the loophole, the subsidy, the bailout, the waiver, and the bad half-billion dollar loan, only to those they deem worthy.
He claims the second true plank is national defense, and laments the cronyism, corruption and waste. I can go along with that. Again though, in his description of Republicans as crazy hawks, he neglects to note the Mars worship of an administration which contends that assassination and war by remote control is an exclusive prerogative of the President.
I think my biggest disagreement with him is when he places the religion thing as a "true article" of Repub belief. That is the centerpiece of the meaningless window dressing, and the record tells the tale. However strong a lure it might be for the theocratically minded voters, the courts aren't going to let God's flag fly. Republicans have been in the White House, in part by reaching out to those voters, for 20 of the last 30 years and the abortion fight centers around the most repulsive late-term procedures, and what we do with the leftover bits. In that time, we have progressed from Texas locking people up for sodomy, to being snotty about gay divorce. I don't especially care for the fundie wing of the party (and I make them nervous  ) but it is easy to comfort myself by whispering at them, under my breath, "suckers."
An interesting read, Ken, but nothing mandatory here. He did a nice job of catching all the Dem talking points of the day, as he tries to move from the bureaucratic class, to the chattering class.
< Message edited by TheHeretic -- 9/4/2011 9:07:24 AM >
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If you lose one sense, your other senses are enhanced.
That's why people with no sense of humor have such an inflated sense of self-importance.
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An essay everyone should read - 
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