Last week's edition of the The New York Times Magazine, in addition to a cover story about Chris "My Life is Nothing But Strategy" Matthews, featured a Deborah Solomon mini-interview with Grover "Drown it in a Bathtub" Norquist.
In response to one of Solomon's questions regarding the potential benefits of regulation, Norquist responded with a non-sequitur that was (pick one: obtsue, lazy thinking, right-wing mythology)
Don’t you see how regulation could help? If you let people own their land, they take care of it. That’s why privately owned land is always taken care of, and the parks look like cesspools. Nobody takes care of what everybody owns.
Now, I live a few blocks from Central Park in Manhattan. Apparently, Norquist has never visited Central Park, because if he had he could not possibly have made this ridiculous statement. Central Park is a gem. On a beautiful spring day, such as a today, it is one of the pure pleasures of life to stroll through Central Park--to see the wild life, the trees, the boaters, the softball players--the beautiful connection between the park and the people of New York. No cesspools in sight.
Contra: I grew up in a small middle-class town in central New Jersey. Everybody there owned their own house. I cannot tell you how many people let their lawns become overgrown with weeds, failed to paint their houses, or parked cars on the front lawn with no tires. One homeowner even used his backyard as a type of landfill.
So, Grover--what the hell are you talking about?