Dear Redstate.com,
I wondered for a while why I felt compelled to read the drivel on your site. I just get mad and the utter lack of any connection to reality. And I'm not going to post because, you know, I'm not giving you my info.
Then I found it. What I'd been looking for without knowing. A path to an almost nirvana-like state of relaxation. I now know my candidate is a lock, because you've been reduced to doing pieces on how he is "Conventional, bitter, and graceless." It's like it's already February, and you're settling in as the opposition party (oh, am I'm going to enjoy that).
Thank you redstate.com! Thank you!
--eze
PS The OBAMA campaign is "unsure of its own organizing principle"? Really? Remind me again which campaign is going to clean up the corruption on Wall Street by getting government out of the way? Which candate is for economic regulation "when it's truly needed"? Amazing.
The McCain camp was just quoted on NPR News as saying that, although McCain is generally against regulation, he is in favor of it "when it's truly needed." Huh?
As I've <a href = http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/09/the-market-collapse-was-the-go.php>argued</a href>, bust is an integral part of the unrestrained free-market that Republicans have been pushing since at least 1980. Thus, their natural response to the current woes ought to be "so? This is the way it is supposed to work. Suck it up!" Thus, in a down market, they shouldn't be rushing to regulation; they should be telling people to hold on for a wild ride.
Liberals, on the other hand, think the market functions better when regulated so that the highs are lower and the lows are higher. (I recognize that, rhetoric aside, this is largely a difference of degree not kind; I'm no Marxist, but I don't subscribe to the Chicago school either.)
But whatever your world view, I can see no principled reason why it should change based on the market. Unless you are willing to say you've been proven wrong and reform your ways, the ups and downs of the market should not change your fundamental view of how markets ought to be regulated. Markets go up and down, so if you have a coherent theory, it should take account for that.
That's why the McCain camp's comment struck me. If McCain or his advisors had a coherent model, it would not fundamentally change now that the market is down. They would just be telling you to hang on (which is what I understood McCain's "fundamentals" refrain to mean). For his part, Obama was for regulation even when the market was up because his model told him to be weary of the downside as investing and borrowing got out of hand. But McCain's model, apparently, shifts based on the market. He wants no regulation when it's up; he wants regulation it's down. And that exposes his model's greatest weakness: he doesn't have one; he's just guessing.
It's early in this crisis, but I fear that the Dems and liberals will miss the larger point in trying to blame the Republicans for the current economic woes: The economic downturn -- the collapse of massive financial institutions and the loss of savings, houses, and jobs -- is not a mistake. It's not an accident. It's the point of unrestrained free market economics.
The whole idea of an unregulated market is to allow growth through destruction. Those who take the right risks are rewarded. Those who take the wrong ones are dangerous, and ought to be wiped out. Invest in Lehman Brothers? Buy a house in an up market? Invest in subprime mortgages? Good riddance to bad rubish.
Thus, far from a set-back, the current financial crisis is the goal that the Republican party has been working for since at least 1980. That's why the president called this a "correction." It is. And if we keep these policies, we can expect more corrections, on a more regular basis in the years to come.
Mazel Tov!
I'm sure that the Democrats will hurl lots of blame at the Republican party. And if history is any guide (and if there is a God), it will pay off in November. But let's not call it a mistake. Let's make sure everyone knows that this has been their goal for quite some time. And maybe, just maybe, we can kill unrestrained, free-market conservatism -- at least for a generation or two.
