Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: Socialism with German Nationalist Characteristics

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: Socialism with German Nationalist Characteristics:

". . . if only Rudolf Hilferding and his ilk had been less blinkered ideologues who sought truth from old books rather than new facts, the SPD could have led a German 'New Deal' that would have been as great a success as Roosevelt's New Deal in America."

DeLong is talking about how the German Social Democrats circa 1931 stood around in policy paralysis as the Nazis and Communists siphoned off their support with programs of public works to overcome the effects of the Great Depression.

DeLong does not draw the implied parallel, I would:

The connection between this historical episode and the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for a New American Century is left as an exercise to the reader."

My own thoughts went to the present inability of liberal economists to fashion some reasonable policy in response to the downsides of globalization.

Looking for realignment

digby looks for realignment:

The Republicans and the Christian Right are leading America on a backward march into the Dark Ages --- and that is stepping on our dreams. As a culture, we have always been idealistic about progress and inspired by new discoveries to improve the lot of the human race. We're about invention and reinvention. It's one of our best qualities.

These people are telling us that those days are over. We have to depend upon brute force, superstition and ancient revelation. Science is dangerous. Art is frightening. Education must be strictly circumscribed so that children aren't exposed to ideas that might lead them astray.

It's a pinched, sour, ugly vision of America. For those who believe that their time on earth is all about waiting for The Bridegroom, perhaps that doesn't mean much. But for the rest of us, things like scientific breakthroughs or artistic achievement are inspirational, soaring emotional connections with our country and our fellow man. It makes us proud. The dark-ages conservatives want to take that away from us.

This country has been divided at 50/50 for some time. That probably cannot continue much longer and a real majority will emerge before long. Tax-cuts have held together the GOP coalition up to now, but their dark vision of the future may be the thing that finally drives the suburban, educated voters to our side of the ledger for a long time to come. We're the ones with the progressive dream of the future and that's as American as a Big Mac and fries."

One of the basic patterns of American politics, is that, as one Party uses a strategy of becoming more radical, as a way of reaching for power, the other Party responds by becoming both more adamant and more moderate.

As Billmon helpfully explains, Karl Rove only wants 51%: "The working assumption seems to be that the partisan divide between Republican and Democrat -- or more accurately, between conservative and non-conservative -- is too deep to fill and too wide to bridge. That being the case, 51% is the best either side can hope for, as well as the most politically effective and efficient majority. In other words, the best of all possible worlds."

The trouble with a 51% solution in a two-party system is that it is inherently unstable. Two-party systems tend to split 55-45 or even 60-40, most of the time; one Party is clearly dominant, and the other merely aspiring. The Republican Party had the dominant role, 1896-1930, and the Democrats had that role, 1932-1982. Oh, sure, the minority Party had a flirtation or two with power, as in Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Eisenhower's. When the dominant coalition grows too large, there's a tendency to sprout third-party movements, as happened in 1912 and 1948. But, that's not what's happening now. What's happening now is just the opposite: the two-Party system has been strengthening, sapping the middle.

As a Party becomes more radical, its leadership become more radical, which, oftentimes, means more stupid and, ironically, more corruptible. Intensity of devotion from radical followers can offset the loss of numbers overall, on election day, but the erosion of the quality of leadership is the more fatal affliction.

What we're looking for in a Great Political Storm is an emotionally arousing moment, in which people form or reform their personal Party political affiliation. The duration of that moment may be a period of months or years, but its consequence can be far-reaching.

Guillotine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Guillotines on the mall, I suppose, are out of the question?

Waiting for an Iraq Policy

Whiskey Bar: Babbling Idiots:

". . . there's obviously a hard edge of real desperation -- if not despair -- behind this. America's ruling elites have had things largely their own way for the past couple of decades. But now they're looking at a bottomless quagimire that may have a much bigger disaster (like loss of access to Persian Gulf oil) hidden somewhere in the mud. And they don't have a clue about what to do. They've lost control, which is the last thing any ruling elite can afford to admit.

"Small wonder then, that the policy 'debate' has now crossed the line into complete fantasy . . . "

The continuing deterioration of the situation in Iraq is one of the sure signs that a political storm is coming.

I am hoping that the Democrats gain control the House, and with it the power to investigate the Bush Administration. The old lions of the Democratic Party, men like Waxman and Conyers, will have important committee chairs. These are not men, who nurse ambitions to be President, and they are men with a deep knowledge of the bureaucracy, of where the levers of real administrative power lie.

They won't be able to do much about Iraq. My only fear is that Bush will try to manipulate them into "forcing" a withdrawal and accepting the blame for total failure in Iraq.

But, if Republican Power is to be overthrown, its very foundations will have to be undermined. And, investigation of the corruption involved is necessary.

How long?

Kevin Drum wonders:: "I wonder how long it will take America to recover from George Bush's uniquely blinkered and self-righteous brand of ineptitude? In the past five years he's demonstrated to the world that we don't know how to win a modern guerrilla war. He's demonstrated that we don't understand even the basics of waging a propaganda war. He's demonstrated that other countries don't need to pay any attention to our threats. He's demonstrated that we're good at talking tough and sending troops into battle, but otherwise clueless about using the levers of statecraft in the service of our own interests. If he had set out to willfully and deliberately expose our weaknesses to the world and undermine our strengths, he couldn't have done more to cripple America's power and influence in the world. Beneath the bluster, he's done more to weaken our national security than any president since World War II."

I think the answer is never.

There's some chance that a political realignment will put the rational adults back in charge, or not.

The loss of America's ability to think and act rationally and competently, goes deep. It is not just that the President is remarkably inept. He has attracted to himself a significant slice of the American electorate -- a working, voting majority -- who, in various ways, are committed to being inept, stupid and corrupt.

Bush's policies have been actively praised and supported by a lot of people: conservative evangelicals, the rich and greedy, closet authoritarians masquerading as libertarians, lots of corrupt Republican politicians and silly Media pundits.

Pointing out that Bush is corrupt, inept and stupid is not going to persuade Bush's base to not support him. They support him, because they are themselves, willfully stupid and corrupt: they see in him, themselves, and they like what they see! You can deride it as bad taste, but they are not likely to be persuaded that they have made a mistake.

Sterling Newberry says that the main trick in politics is to create an implicit alliance, of the rational and the sane against the insane. The rational and the sane are usually not entirely in one Party or other political grouping; the alliance of the rational and the sane is more of a working arrangement, implicit in the interaction of competing elites, which marginalizes "radical" elements across the political spectrum.

The mobilization of Republican power, which culminated in Bush's election, has overthrown the coalition of the sane and rational, which had ruled American politics since the depths of World War II. The combination of the Great Depression and Pearl Harbor allowed FDR to bury the insane, authoritarian, isolationist wing of the Republican Party; it rose from the dead in the McCarthy era, only to bury itself in Goldwater's 1964 campaign.

The coalition of the sane was able to bring down Nixon, when that job had to be done, aided in the final hour by Nixon's own commitment to sanity -- his one redeeming quality.

Whether a coalition of the sane can put the politics of Karl Rove back in a bottle remains to be seen. A political storm is building, the likes of which has not been seen in the United States since the Civil War.

The Sorrow and the Pity

James Wolcott: "Nearly everyone of functional intelligence and minimal perception (which, admittedly, leaves out a stubborn third of the American population) acknowledges the violent inferno that engulfs Iraq--a vortex that seems to be gathering strength with each screaming rotation. What's maddening is how the political chatshow discussions of how the U.S. should proceed (i.e., race to the exits in an orderly fashion) sound so divorced from the scale of the horror and misery that have been unleashed. To hear the pundits, think tankers, and public officials drone on with their proposed solutions, you'd think they were discussing how the Ravens might beef up their offense, or what the Mets need to do over the spring to bolster their starting rotation. There's barely an emotional hint of tragically, arrogantly, and unforgivably this country has fucked up."

Mr. Wolcott goes on to cite an excellent post by Billmon on this subject.

I am truly ashamed of what my country has done. Truly ashamed.

A New Course? With the same Crew?

Michael O'Hare:

". . . we're going to be offered a new course to victory, or to something palatable.

Do not stay aboard even for the in-port sailing party of this new course, because the Iraqi disaster was not just a matter of choosing the wrong course, or staying on it too long. The venal, incompetent, corrupt, cynical, deaf-and-dumb management of the mission, from the bridge down to the bilges, would have doomed the enterprise in any case, and the same crew of ideologues, and opportunists will put the new one on the rocks in short order. The problem this administration, and its congressional enablers, cannot escape (even if Rumsfeld is shooed along the plank), is that it is incapable of managing any business it undertakes except sinking its political capital into electoral success. That business has no similarity to extrication from Iraq, and anyway it is in liquidation, with the looters and scavengers already skulking around the works picking up the odd bit of salvage goods. "

Signs of an Impending Meltdown in Iraq | TPMCafe

The Facts of War: Signs of an Impending Meltdown in Iraq | TPMCafe:

"In the last few days the destabilization point has been reached - the attempt to hold the Battle of Baghdad has been lost. As importantly it was lost to an operational offensive by the insurgency, amidst mounting coalition casualties.

These developments put even the ability to engage in a withdrawal from Iraq in danger"

The last President to lose a war was Richard M. Nixon.

Alert Everyone You Know

Daily Kos: ACTION ALERT: Blackwell purged Ohio Voter Rolls Oct 1st.- Vote Early.: "Alert a everyone you know in Ohio."

Ohio Secretary of State Blackwell conducted a voter purge on October 1, which eliminated million Democratic votes in Ohio, according this Kos Diarist.

Definitely worth reading. Also, you might consider exercising your 2nd Amendment Rights.

What's the Matter with Kansas?

I am a Democratic living in a Democratic State. I hardly know any Republicans.

I literally do not know who elected our moron-in-chief, and who voted for him after four years of experience with his incompetence and moral confusion is a mystery to me.

I have seen some liberals and Democrats speculate that, maybe, the Religious Right will wake up, and abandon the Republicans this election, or, at least, stay home. That doesn't seem plausible to me, at all. People, who have built their lives around being fooled, don't wake up en masse. Individually, sometimes, yes, but as a group, they rely on the group to maintain their illusions; they voted for Bush because the Group insisted, against observable truth, that Bush was a good and moral man. They believe what the Group says, not their own lying eyes, because they like being part of the Group, and that's the price. No, there will be no shift there.

The people in Virginia who like George Allen, will still be very enthusiastic about him on election day. George Allen is a certifiable moron and racist. His fervent supporters in Virginia do not see those qualities as disqualifications for office.

If there is an electoral shift, it will not be among the true believers. And, it certainly will not be among the greedy rich and corrupt, who have benefitted materially from Bush. No, the shift will come among the secular conservatives, who were once pillars of the Republican Party. People, who were Republicans because they were repulsed by liberal Democrats on a gut level, not because they inhabited a different reality from liberal Democrats. Rational people, who expect moderation and realism, from their political leaders.

There's been a trickle of Republican leaders from the Republican Party into the Democratic party, in response to the failures of Bush and the increasing radicalism and corruption of the Republican Party.

If the Democrats win a durable electoral majority, it will be because they have grown a new conservative wing, a New Democratic Right. Hopefully, it will be better than the racist scum, who dominated the Old Democratic Right, or the corrupt Republican Lite compromisers of the DLC.

Ohio, a State that has been solidly Republican for over a hundred years, that gave us generations of Tafts, is probably going to switch decisively to the Democratic column in this coming election.

Kansas is a State with a Republican heritage going back to Alf Landon, the only Republican Governor elected in 1932, and consequently the candidate a nearly moribund Republican Party ran against Roosevelt in 1936. They are that Republican! Kansas may also go Democratic this Fall, in a big way.

Thanks to Kevin Drum for the pointer.

The Johnson County Sun:

"This is a sneak preview.

As we prepare ourselves to make political endorsements in subsequent issues, I can tell you unequivocally that this newspaper has never endorsed so many Democrats. Not even close.

In the 56 years we have been publishing in Johnson County, this basically has been a Republican newspaper. In the old days . . . we were traditional Republicans. That is, we happily endorsed Jan Meyers for Congress, Bob Dole for U.S. Senate, Nancy Kassebaum for U.S. Senate; virtually every Republican state legislator from here, with a few rare exceptions; and most governors, although we did endorse the conservative Democrats George and Bob Docking and John Carlin.

The point is, I can name on two hands over a half century the number of Democrats we have endorsed for public office.

This year, we will do something different. You will read why we are endorsing Kathleen Sebelius for governor and Mark Parkinson for lieutenant governor; Dennis Moore to be re-elected to the U.S. Congress; Paul Morrison for Kansas attorney general; and a slew of local Democratic state legislative candidates. These are not liberal Democrats. They are what fairly can be described as conservative Democrats, and we can prove that in our forthcoming endorsements. . . .

the shift, frankly, shocks me, because I have pulled the lever over and over since my first vote in 1968 for Republicans. If I was a closet Democrat, I must have hidden it well, especially from myself, since I always beat up on Democrats in my columns. I have called them leftists, socialists, and every other name in the book, because I thought they were flat-out wrong.

And, for the most part, I still do. I am opposed to big government. I have little use for unions. I never liked the welfare plans. I am opposed to weak-kneed defense policies. I have always been for fiscal prudence. I think back to the policies of most Democrats, and I cringe.

So, what in the world has happened?

The Republican Party has changed, and it has changed monumentally.

You almost cannot be a victorious traditional Republican candidate with mainstream values in Johnson County or in Kansas anymore, because these candidates never get on the ballot in the general election. They lose in low turnout primaries, where the far right shows up to vote in disproportionate numbers.

To win a Republican primary, the candidate must move to the right.

What does to-the-right mean?

It means anti-public education, though claiming to support it.

It means weak support of our universities, while praising them.

It means anti-stem cell research.

It means ridiculing global warming.

It means gay bashing. Not so much gay marriage, but just bashing gays.

It means immigrant bashing. I'm talking about the viciousness.

It means putting religion in public schools. Not just prayer.

It means mocking evolution and claiming it is not science.

It means denigrating even abstinence-based sex education.

Note, I did not say it means "anti-abortion," because I do not find that position repugnant, at all. I respect that position.

But everything else adds up to priorities that have nothing to do with the Republican Party I once knew.

That's why, in the absence of so-called traditional Republican candidates, the choice comes down to right-wing Republicans or conservative Democrats.

And now you know why we have been forced to move left."

Next?

AlterNet: Does Bush Think War with Iran Is Preordained?:

"The aircraft carrier Eisenhower, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio, guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, guided-missile destroyer USS Mason and the fast-attack submarine USS Newport News, is, as I write, making its way to the Straits of Hormuz off Iran. The ships will be in place to strike Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple show of American power. But I doubt it.

War with Iran -- a war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East -- is probable by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as three weeks. "

I have a very hard time getting my mind to accept as plausible the idea that Bush will attack Iran.

But, the political storm, which would follow, at home and abroad would dwarf anything in this country since the Civil War.

What's Happening Now

Economist's View: Paul Krugman: Will the Levee Break?:

"Here’s what’s happening: a huge Democratic storm surge is heading toward a high Republican levee. It’s still possible that the surge won’t overtop the levee — that is, the Democrats could fail by a small margin... But if the surge does go over the top, the ... Democrats [will]... probably win big."

A powerful metaphor.

Krugman is a numbers man, and what he sees is that this election is very likely to turn into all-or-nothing, a coin-flip where the odds strongly disfavor the coin ending, standing on edge.

here’s the thing: because there are many districts that the G.O.P. carried by only moderately large margins in recent elections, a large Democratic surge — one only a bit bigger than that needed to take the House at all — would sweep away many Republicans holding seats normally considered safe. If the actual vote is anything like what the polls now suggest, we’re talking about the Democrats holding a larger majority in the House than the Republicans have held at any point since their 1994 takeover.

"If" -- now there's a word for the ages. The polls show a Democratic edge of 14%. Polls show a Democratic edge of about 7% in normal times, that is, when the actual vote will split evenly. The Democrats need an actual majority of 7% in the national vote to be sure of taking the House, and that might still leave them without control of the Senate.

Given recent electoral history, no Democrat is going to be anything more than guardedly optimistic.

The storm may yet weaken. ... If that happens, will it mean that Republican control is permanent after all?

No. Bear in mind that the G.O.P. isn’t in trouble because of a string of bad luck. The problems that have caused Americans to turn on the party, from the disaster in Iraq to the botched response to Katrina, from the failed attempt to privatize Social Security to the sudden realization by many voters that the self-proclaimed champions of moral values are hypocrites, are deeply rooted in the whole nature of Republican governance. So even if this surge doesn’t overtop the levee, there will be another surge soon.

But the best guess is that the permanent Republican majority will end in a little over three weeks.

And, then the fun begins?

Given the extent of the corruption and the Presidential overreaching, which has gone on, I would expect Democratic control of either house of Congress to result in multiple Congressional investigations. It will get ugly.

And, I also expect that Republicans will try to maneuver the Democrats into policies that backfire. Job 1 will be to get the Democrats to "force" Bush out of Iraq in a way that allows them to blame the subsequent Middle East catastrophe on the Democrats.

But, that all assumes a Democratic wave washing the Republicans out.

I fear that the levee is the Constitution, and what has topped the levee is the reactionary will to power.

The Constitution created a system of divided government and checks and balances, which results in a pendulum politics, where, for every action, there is a reaction, and where an increasingly radical politics begets opposition from irate moderates.

The Republican Party has been driven for 30 years by radicals, and they've pushed the country and the Constitution about as far as the country can go without breaking. They have been in near total control for five years, and are close to locking down their control, not just of the Executive and the Congress, but of the News Media and the Judiciary, as well.

The Foley scandal has been an odd business, but, typical of the work of our incompetent, right-wing Media, it is as much a distraction as an expose. The economic situation is discouraging only if you are inclined to take the long view; in the moment, most people are doing OK. Gas prices are low. Most people are not on the blogs, and are appallingly ill-informed. The evangelicals will go out and vote Republican as always, vote for torture and corruption and hypocrisy and feel good about themselves, and plenty of Democrats in Massachusetts and California will vote in Districts where it will change nothing.

I see the irate moderates rallying, but I don't see that they have overwhelming strength.

I fear that the Democrats will fail, and should they fail, it won't be just the Party that packs it in, it may well be the Republic.

Only if the Democrats take at least nominal control of the House and close the difference in the Senate to two, so that the remaining three moderate Republicans hold the Senate balance, will the politic process continue. If there are Democrats with the power of investigation, then the tide of reactionary authoritarianism may be turned. Bush will not be able to secure a reactionary, authoritarian majority on the Supreme Court and in the Federal judiciary as a whole. A lot corruption will be exposed; there's a chance that some of the thugs in the Republican Party will be hounded from power.

But, I am not as optimistic that another "storm surge" of opposition will follow, should the Democrats fall short. The pendulum-swinging politic process setup by the Constitution may well have come to a complete stop. Without a Democratic majority returned from the country, the judiciary will not resist the repeal of habeas corpus. Democratic politicians clinging to office will not grow courageous in the face of an unresponsive ballot box or an unfailingly right-wing Media.

And the Base is beginning to figure it out.

Kevin Drum quotes Tucker Carlson: "It's pandering to the base in the most cynical way, and the base is beginning to figure it out."

There are a number of liberals and Democrats looking for the breakup of the Republican coalition, looking for the evangelicals to desert the secular, corrupt plutocrats, they chose for leaders. And, secular Republican shills, who report on the cynical way Rove and his associates regard the evangelicals, are trotted out. There's much talk about how the evangelicals may be discouraged and stay home on election day.

Yeah, right.

The conservative evangelicals are who they are, because they are deeply committed to never, ever figuring anything out.

Bill Moyer hosted a documentary the other night on PBS about evangelical environmental activism. This was not about anyone figuring anything out. It was about the tribe adopting a new stance and organizing activity. It was authoritarianism in motion.

There's some chance that the leadership of the evangelicals will decide to turn in another direction, which leaves the Republican Party floundering. But, there is no chance that evangelicals are going to spontaneously realize that Bush is a mean, stupid, corrupt bastard.

83%

New York Times/CBS Poll Finds: "Mr. Bush clearly faces constraints as he seeks to address the public concerns about Iraq that have shrouded this midterm election: 83 percent of respondents thought that Mr. Bush was either hiding something or mostly lying when he discussed how the war in Iraq was going."

Day of Reckoning

Fareed Zakaria:

"President Bush says that if America leaves Iraq now, the violence will get worse, and terrorists could take control. He's right. But that will be true whenever we leave. 'Staying the course' only delays that day of reckoning."

Most intelligent people, who have been paying attention and are honest, recognized that Bush failed in Iraq, long before he was making a fool of himself on that aircraft carrier. But, conservative opinion makers have adopted narratives designed to obscure the realization. Fareed Zakaria, one of the most important makers of opinion on Iraq, has dropped the pretence.

Kevin Drum notices the tectonic shift in the conventional wisdom:

"Zakaria is a smart guy, but he's also a person who's good at putting his finger to the wind — and then getting credit for leading the way when he anticipates an imminent shift. That may be what's happening here. Sometimes all it takes is for one person to say something publicly in order to get everyone else to finally admit their own unspoken doubts. This may be the column that breaks the dam and makes withdrawal respectable among the center-right establishment."

Remember . . .

'No Further Fallout' - washingtonpost.com: "REMEMBER WHEN President Bush promised to restore honor and integrity to the Oval Office? He doesn't either . . . "

(thanks to the shrill Mark Kleiman)

What Goes Around . . .

Andrew Sullivan:

"Part of me is distressed that the GOP could lose not because of spending recklessness, corruption, torture, big government, pork, and a hideously botched war ... but because of a sex scandal which doesn't even have (so far as we know) any actual sex. But part of me also sees the karmic payback here. They rode this tiger; now it's turning on them. And it's dinner time."

I cannot say I am not enjoying, just a little bit. Still, I remain somewhat pessimistic. New habits of critical thinking and reporting are hard to break. The Associated Press and Fox News, for a time, were identifying Republican predator (is that a redundancy?) Mark Foley as a Democrat! That ol' liberal media just funnin' us now, I guess.

Here's a ray of sunshine from Gary Sargent: "The Washington Post has, for two days running now, been aggressively correcting President Bush's lies about Democrats."

And, in a few short weeks we will see if they still count votes in this country.

It is October: Surprised, yet?

Bill mon at Whiskey Bar: Fall Classic:

"One of the things that makes watching the Cheney Administration so exciting is that you never know how paranoid you ought to be.

"It would, in a totally perverse way, be carthartic (in both senses of the word) if the real October surprise turned out to be a tactical nuclear strike on Isfahan. At least the uncertainty would be gone. We would know beyond a reasonable doubt that the United States is no longer a constitutional republic, at least not in any meaningful sense, and could respond as our consciences and courage dictate. And I could finally stop worrying about whether I'm being too paranoid.

"Like I said, I don't expect it happen. War with Iran may be and probably is coming, but I doubt it's coming on Karl Rove's timetable.

Still, given the hole the Rovians now find themselves in, and the stakes they're playing for, I'm going to be nervously paranoid each and every day until the polls close on November 7."

Me, being a more traditional Democrat, will be experiencing peak paranoia slightly after the polls closed -- probably, about the time the "results" are announced.

Gas prices and the reported unemployment rate are low, and the stock market is nearing its all-time peak. Coincidence? My paranoia cannot quite decide.

Bush is a challenge for the imaginative mind. On the one hand, he seems a bumbling fool. On the other, he is enormously powerful, tied closely to a variety of enormously powerful organizations and institutions. Added to his apparent foolishness is the ethically-challenged nature of his close associates.

Hmmm. What to think, what to think? What to pray, what to pray?

Trying to Lose?

The Carpetbagger Report:

"is it possible Republicans are trying to lose the elections? I'm only half-kidding. The fact that the GOP isn't competent or ethical is hardly news, but as a rule, these guys are great at politics. All of a sudden, they're the gang that can't shoot straight — on Foley, the NIE, the 'comma,' Woodward revelations, the Taliban, etc.

I find it hard to believe the Republicans are intentionally throwing the campaign cycle, but if they were, wouldn't it look a bit like this?"

Well, yes, it is possible.

There has always been present in Republican policy design elements, which suggest that the Grand Strategy is to let the inevitable disaster happen on a Democratic watch, and then blame the Democrats.

One way to get out of Iraq is to let the Democrats "force" us out of Iraq, and, then, to blame the Democrats for losing Iraq.

Economist's View: This Can't Be Real

Economist's View: Mark Thoma:

"I can't figure out how I ended up in bizarro world where liberals are upset at government intrusion into the private sector, something that is supported and encouraged by conservatives. Even libertarians are largely silent as the government stomps on the marketplace for ideas and engages in other intrusions. And that's just the tip of the bizarro world iceberg these days. There's torture before we know if people are innocent or guilty, spying on private citizens without warrants, throwing people in jail without the right to contest it in court, all sorts of stuff that could only exist in some alternative up is down, bad is good universe. Seriously, this can't be real. "

Oh, it is real enough. Welcome to fascist America.