economics nuttiness

We are certainly seeing a serious schism in american political life. One might argue that it's time for the country to split into two. Not north versus south, but ultra conservative versus moderate (never mind about ultra liberal, they are a weak force in politics by now). Clearly there is a major fraction of the US population that does not really accept a real role for government - they don't accept the fundamental concept of civitas. They may think that police, fire, education and the arts should all be privately managed, i.e. only available to the well-to-do.

Let's review what actually happened during the past 10 years. After 9-11, the US became hugely militarized, and the the Patriot Act one could say pretty fascistic (when it needed to be, and not against most of the population, but against targeted groups certainly). As usual in time of (effectively) war, the country rallied around its government and its elected political majority party. Unfortunately, the actual military actions were rapidly hijacked by a totally irrelevant agenda, i.e. the conquest of Iraq rather than a focused campaign against Al-Qaeda and its associated groups. Clearly the entire Iraq campaign was unnecessary from a home security perspective (regardless of its possible value to Iraqis under their dictatorship, although it's arguable whether we've actually done the poor Iraqis any good at all). Moreover, it was hugely expensive. The failure to focus sufficiently on Al-Qaeda probably made the subsequent military expansion into Afghanistan necessary.

At the same time that these two wars were prosecuted, marginal tax rates were lowered and financial speculation was wildly over-encouraged, leading to the 2008 fiscal meltdown. The huge deficit incurred by now in the U.S. is a clear outcome of those mostly Republican policies (although plenty of Democrats played the banking deregulation game as well, to their shame). Now hard line Republicans want to finally pay for those wars and financial shenanigans by ultimately eliminating Social Security and Medicare (though most of them won't say as much in as many words). So the true vision of these hardliners is clear: a dog-eat-dog world where nice guys finish last, robber barons run the country, and the justification is that after all maybe I could be one of those robber barons if the rule of law is practically abolished. Sorry guys, but I don't agree with your basic premise. I think it is possible for the country to have sustainable "entitlements", in fact that is not even the right word for them. Social Security and Medicare are basically national savings plans, they are paid by everyone's taxes because everyone will need them some day. The way to prevent them from bankrupting the country is to manage them, which is hard, not to abolish them which seems easy but is in fact vicious and mean.

OK, my two cents today, inveighing against mean spirited fascists.