RESPONDING TO REPUBLICAN TEMPER TANTRUMS

With all the right wing bluster and violence coming out, I thought I would share with you my most recent response to another Republican "dialogue" request. The primary contents of the Republican letter are apparent from my response.

Mr. T. Party (yeah, it's made up):

You guys need to get off your "socialism" soapbox. As someone who teaches this stuff from a comparative and historical perspective, your team's references are simplistic, ill-informed and embarrassing for what it reveals about your team's intellectual capacity (and your reference to free markets is way off base too; save that one for another day). Seriously, all your team does is work itself up into a lather over things that aren't there, and outcomes that may seem spooky to you, but represent what modern government is all about. The focus on whipping your team up over false assertions of "socialism" and "government takeovers" prevents you from looking at serious policy problems as issues that need to be solved.

Where was your concern over totalitarianism when Bush was carving up the Constitution with signing statements, and spending trillions of dollars on reckless wars? Health care reform will not cost anything near what President Bush's unfunded and reckless war in Iraq will cost us (trillions), and tax cuts for the rich have cost us (about $2 trillion). Bush effectively doubled the national debt. Reagan almost tripled it. Is "borrow and spend" worse than "tax and spend"? Do tell.

Look, Obama's not a socialist. He's not a Muslim. He's not the Antichrist. The fact that your team believes this is the case suggest some real problems that go beyond simple policy disputes.

As usual, I didn't get a response. I'll have more to say about this, and other aspects of the post-Health Care Reform Temper Tantrum from the right, in my next post, "VICHY REPUBLICans" ...
- Mark