More things that infuriate me.
I know that in recent days this “blog” has become more like a compendium of links, but lately it seems like everyone else is saying it so much better than I am, and I’m just trying to keep up. I’ve been trying hold off linking to EVerything I find interesting, but today I read two things back to back that really riled me up.
The first is today’s column by Thomas Friedman, about Sarah Palin’s feelings about taxes and patriotism.
Although the point he makes is a little late in coming (shouldn’t this have come out after last week’s debate?), it’s so important I hope the Times reprints it again. He’s been able to articulate one of the most essential — perhaps the ultimate — reason that I think the Republican platform is fundamentally unsound. It’s the tenet of the Republican platform that Sarah Palin so un-artfully expressed at the debate last week — taxes are unpatriotic.
In normal days and years, intelligent, thoughtful Republicans can make an unregulated free-market (maybe even trickle-down, if the person was charming as well as smart) economic system seem logical. But in this election year, in these last weeks with these particular two Republican candidates, the idea is outrageous.
On the most basic level, I, as a Democrat, agree with Thomas Friedman: “…my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: ‘I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.’”
And I think it’s safe to say that a majority of Republicans in this country would not disagree with the concept of paying some taxes to support the things Friedman mentions. What is so hypocritical — and frankly, offensive, and even more frankly, stupid — is this garbage that McCain and Palin keep spewing about how the only way to adequately represent the taxpayers is by lowring their taxes. Oh, and by the way, there’s a war in Iraq that we want to extend forever and you’re on the side of the terrorists if you don’t want to fund it. Oh, and by the way, we need $700 billion of your dollars to save the entire American and potentially global economy from destruction because a bunch of years ago Ronald Reagan told us that getting rid of regulations would make us richer (and look where that got us). But anyone who tells you that paying taxes is patriotic is a fool and an elitist and out of touch with Americans and is probably a Muslim extremist.
If it were up to me, Obama would pull a “Ask not what your country could do for you” moment and increase taxes on everybody, and let that be an expression of how fully we believe in our country and how fervently we want it to get better.
(Yes, even my broke student ass is saying that.)
Aside from that, the other piece that pissed me off today is a little less important, mostly because, in my book, Fox News is not worth exerting a lot of emotion over.
Apparently Sean Hannity is hosting an hour-long special on Fox titled “Obama and Friends: The History of Radicalism.”
As I skimmed the article before deciding it was important enough to read in its entirety, a few choice quotes jumped out at me:
-“… accusations that Mr. Obama’s work as a community organizer in Chicago was training for a ‘radical overthrow of the government.”
-“‘If you love the Cuban Revolution and Castro and you love what’s happening in Venezuela with Hugo Chavez, you’ll love Barry Obama — Barack Obama, as he calls himself — in the White House.”’ [“as he calls himself”? that’s his name. what should he call himself?]
-“The program presented no opposing viewpoint to the program’s thesis: that, in Mr. Hannity’s words, ‘Obama’s list of friends reads like a history of radicalism.’”
In the last few days when I have let myself get upset at things like this, there have been some people around me that direct me to the polls and tell me not to worry because Obama’s probably going to win. Aside from my wariness of betting the house on anything right now, that’s not even the point. Yes, I would be more than thrilled if Obama wins; in fact, I will delve into a dark despair if he doesn’t. But even if he does win, the fact that this rhetoric exists on a mainstream level in this country — and that people are buying it — is what really gets my goat. I have this irrationally idealistic view of America as a place where we can come together and see what’s right and what makes sense and what is just ugly political posturing — at least when it’s most important. That belief is why I’ve supported Obama since before he was running for president, because I believe his candidacy may be the first time we’ve seen that beginning to happen at least in the time I’ve been aware of the world. And I just hope beyond hope that that is true, and that soon we’ll be able to laugh about the fact that anyone ever took Sarah Palin or Sean Hannity seriously.
1 year ago