this paragraph alone is beautiful...

[acroyear]

The Infamous Brad:

When someone is oh-so-quick to rush forward in a moment of crisis with a plan to save us all, and it just happens to be the same thing they wanted before the crisis, it almost never means that they really think that their plan will save us from the crisis. It's almost always naked political opportunism combined with cynical emotional blackmail. It means that they've got something to "sell" that they know you wouldn't "buy" if there weren't a crisis to blackmail you with.

Comments

[motherwell.livejournal.com]

Actually, no, I don't agree with that statement at all. If someone proposes a long-standing pet project of his as a solution to a new crisis, it could be for the reasons stated in that paragraph; or it could be because he really believes his solution was right all along, and the recent crisis proves it; and if we had adopted his solution long ago, maybe the present crisis wouldn't be as bad as it is.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

When the #1 example for this is "tax cuts for the rich", which is the Republican solution for both an economic boom and an economic bust. When the #2 example for this is "lets invade Iraq" (again, something that was already in the thoughts of the Bush administration even before 9/11, hell even before Bush won the nomination). When the #3 example of this is warrantless wiretapping (something the NSA has wanted for decades). When the #4 example of this is forfeiture laws (something the DEA wanted for years before Biden finally gave it to them). When the #5 example of this is the DMCA in response to a (in this case, made up) crisis of digital piracy (when in actuality the media companies wanted pay for play all along and knew the DMCA is a step to that).

Sorry, there are PLENTY of examples out there of a crisis being met by something that the party in power, or behind-the-scenes power seekers, wanted and finally got when they could present a real or made up crisis point.

And NONE of those would prevent the crisis they were a reaction to. None.

So maybe there might be "honest" men in government with a good idea in their minds from before that could handle it. But it pays to be FAR more skeptical of it than we ever are. The paragraph is not a call to condemn out right, but a call, like all libertarian calls, to eternal vigilance.

[motherwell.livejournal.com]

You're right about all that, of course; but the Republicans are saying pretty much the same thing about the Democrats' stimulus package: "It's just the same old liberal tax-and-spend big-gummint socialism!" And of course they dodge the fact that a little of that same old liberal tax-and-spend big-gummint socialism might have made this current crisis a little less dire -- or maybe a LOT less dire -- than it is.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

I see apples and oranges here. I named some very specific laws passed under very specific circumstances. saying the counter to that is a blanket (and usually untrue) generalization doesn't really come across as impressive.