Daniel Larison esta en fuego. Excerpts:
[W]hat we are faced with this week is the victory of Hamiltonian collusion between finance and government to use the latter's apparatus of power to shore up the former's wealth. Central government is robbing the people to prop up concentrated wealth, and claiming in the process that it is doing us a favor. Never mind that the government's alarmism may well be wrong.People have been cajoled into submission through fear and intimidation, and above all by the threat that life might become less comfortable. In other words, advocates of the bailout are quite happy to say that liberty has a price and they are very happy to pay it so long as it avoids most of the unpleasantness. "Give me liberty or give me a comfy retirement!" is not exactly a phrase that will live forever. Thus an abject abandonment of liberty is here being implausibly dressed up as a defense of liberty. Burke and Kirk would, I suspect, feel like retching if they had lived to see their understandings of constitutional government and social order used in this way.
It is easy to talk about principle when there is no crisis happening and no risk attached to standing on principle. The real test comes when holding fast may actually cost something. Holding to a principle, if it means anything, means that you value it more than mere self-interest, satisfaction or comfort. A lot of Americans want to have it all-the pretense that they are free, with none of the responsibilities or dangers that go with it. In reality, you can either have the latter and remain free, or you can cease being free and then be kept free (temporarily) from responsibility and danger.
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I may end up voting a straight Democratic ticket. It's time to send the cultists packing. - Posted by: Pyrrho | September 29, 2008 2:35 PM
Considering the Democrats 1) were more responsible for failing to regulate Fannie and Freddie than the Republicans (and the top 3 Senatorial recipients of donations from Freddie and Fannie were Democrats, with Barack being #2), and 2) even while controlling both the House and the Senate, Pelosi couldn't convince her colleagues to pass this vote ... WHY IN HEAVEN'S NAME WOULD YOU WANT MORE DEMOCRATS IN OFFICE? Are you, like, a masochist or something? :^)
Here's an argument similar to the one I would have made had I not been so distracted by work and so upset by events.
* * *
ISN'T THE BAILOUT (TM) REALLY JUST MONETARISM?
A Reader of Instapundit.com named Matt writes:
'Since when did Republicans stop believing in monetary policy? Yes, the plan is expensive ... but the idea that allowing asset deflation on a massive scale is good for the economy in the short or long term because it's "markets working their magic" isn’t just asinine; it’s been disproven.
'The Great Depression went from a correction to a Depression because the Federal Reserve applied a laissez-faire attitude to bank failures all across the country, thinking it would cleanse the bad, inefficient players from the market like any other market. Except it didn’t.
'All that’s different now is that no one keeps their money in banks anymore; it's all tied up in pension funds, money market accounts, and 401(k)'s, so we need more than just the FDIC and the Fed now that we've been caught off-guard. This isn't a failure of capitalism, nor is the rescue plan a form of socialism. It's monetary policy, the same kind every capitialist since Milton Friedman has [advocated]. Credit is not a market like any other. Credit is the lifeblood of capitalism, and America needs a transfusion.
'... the Republicans don’t realize the madness they’re advocating.'
Clueless Rush Limbaugh ideologues can't stand the bailout... and their 401K and stock portfolios dropped 10% today... that'll show those elitists! I shifted my entire 401K to money markets last week. Funny.
Hey, Jack. We're buying.
"can't stand the bailout"????
No, it's just magnificently stupid as conceived and written.
Seems like there is still a strong belief that this bailout is going to solve something. Once more, it doesn't fix anything. It might (with a strong emphasis on might) put off the problem so our kids have to deal with something worse.
I guess in this case the cost of standing up on principle is that I might have to deal with the unpleasantness rather than future generations. I fail to see the morality in passing this on to our kids.
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