Proving Rob’s point
By The logic identified in Rob’s post last week on the usefulness of incompetence, and vice versa, is rather brilliantly demonstrated in the following call and responses routine. First, Neil Buchanan’s angry, righteous rant–a sample:
Tell us again that government is the problem, that things will be perfect if we just shrink our governments down to nothing and allow the wonders of private enterprise to solve all of our problems. As we look in horror at the grisly results of under-funded and ignored public works projects, we need to hear again the song that lulled us to sleep for decades, telling us that we will all be better off if we vilify and ridicule all government programs. Surveying the terrible human cost of a monumental failure to plan for an emergency that was not only predictable but predicted, we need to hear again the invisible hand is the best planner and that government planning will inevitably make matters worse.
And then, observe the predictable responses, from those who fail to grasp that “tell us again” was actually a rhetorical device rather than a specific request:
It’s been pointed out that China suffered a category 4 typhoon in the last few weeks, (forcibly) evacuated some 100,000 prior to the storm striking land and moving 1,000,000 from their homes. I suggest Mr Buchanan emigrate to that workers paradise, where obviously the balance between centralized governmental power and liberty is more to his liking.
# posted by Mark : 7:35 AM
Hmmmmmm. So on one hand, the governments (local, state, & federal) were completely incompetent, but on the other, we should give them more power and money? By giving an incompetent government more money, it will suddenly become competent and efficient? “Tell Us Again” how that’ll work?
# posted by Bret : 8:20 AM
One can almost hope the first comment turns into a conservatarian meme, as it fulfills the two primary requirements (“sublimely absurd” and “deeply depraved”) of such memes perfectly: calling for efficient, effective, responsible government that protects the lives of its citizens is precisely identical to fantasies of totalitarian communism. Newt Gingrich is the new Mao, etc, etc.