Tuesday, April 06, 2010

A little help, here

If ever a column deserved a good and thorough fisking, it's this one from Robert Samuelson in the Washington Post. A taste of its rich, meaty wrong-headedness:

But in truth, differences between parties are often small. Democrats want to spend more and don't want to raise taxes, except on higher earners. Republicans want to reduce taxes but don't want to spend less.

Dude never met John Marty -- that much is certain. In any event, there's more, a lot more, in this primo bit of thumb sucking. Problem is, I don't have time this morning to give this the attention it deserves. So why not have a little fun with it? Your assignment, should you choose to accept it: click on the link, find a risible statement and give that ol' pinata a whack in the comments section. I'm betting you can find a bunch of them if you look really hard.

Group fisking: an idea whose time has come.

2 comments:

W.B. Picklesworth said...

I haven't finished the article yet, but I'm finding that there are some I agree with. Nevertheless, this one is wishful thinking.

But an easier way is to portray the "other side" as scum: The more scummy "they" are, the more superior "we" are. This logic governs the political conversation of left and right, especially talk radio, cable channels and the blogosphere.

The whole "scum" thing is far more prevalent on the Left. This is a moral equivalence that falls flat. The Left needs to vilify their opponents because they need to to be the sole keepers of good intentions. Why? Because they can't justify their radical changes based on law, so it needs to have a moral superiority. The right doesn't need this. We're constantly saying, "We can't afford this" or "You don't know what's going to happen when you tinker with people's lives that way" or "This isn't the government's responsibility."

What do we hear in response? "Why do you hate the children?" "You don't want black people to succeed!" "Those rich people need to pay their fair share."

Clearly there are those on the Right who will paint their opponents as "scum," we aren't morally superior people and so we'll do what's wrong sometimes, just like anybody. But the existence of some vituperation does not make for an equivalence.

K-Rod said...

Pretty much everyone is a higher earner than my adult kids.
Therefore the Democrats want to raise taxes on everyone that actually pays taxes.