Ah, another day another dumb. As I relax with my cup of coffee and spread my local Conservative paper across my lap I see that Mona Charen, conservative columnist and scheduled speaker at what must have been one of the most depressing cruise ship rides in history, has been warning of an "unraveling of civilization" and a "Mad Max" type of future.
"Well," I thought to myself, "That's maybe a bit exaggerated but at least someone on the right is taking climate change seriously. Mayhap Ms. Charen will finally devote her column to a few mia culpas and support of environmental safety measures such as vegetarianism, solar power and the preservation of water tables."
Haha, no!
More below Le Chedder Cheese Croissant.
It turns out that Ms. Moaning Charen wasn't talking about global warming but about the financial hellscape of murder, mayhem, and rage that awaits us should Obama allow the country to be restored to fiscal sanity- sorry, IF TEH OBAMA MAKES TEH COUNTRY GO OFF TEH FISCAL CLIFF! OH NOES!!!!
Moaning Charen starts off her column by quoting a Reuters news story involving the violent assault of the leader of the Greek journalists' Social Security fund because the woman, Ms. Spanopoulou, was asking for a small contribution to keep journalists' pension funds afloat.
"For hours the leader of the Greek journalists' social security fund had been chairing a meeting about disastrous losses on retirement savings caused by the country's economic collapse. 'She tried to present herself as the fund's savior and asked (members) to double contributions to 6 percent of salaries,' said one of those present that night at the Titania hotel. Spanopoulou, 58, did not succeed.
"When she rose to leave around midnight, enraged fund members first swore, then waded in punching, kicking and tearing at her clothes, according to witnesses. A bodyguard managed to bustle her out of the room, but another group caught her just outside the hotel and gave her a second beating. She spent the night in hospital.
Yeah, I agree with Charen. There are a lot of things in this story to enrage any moral reader. A woman gets assaulted by a mob and needs to spend a night in the hospital. That is a woefully common story all around the world.
In the US alone a woman is beaten every fifteen seconds. I'm sure that the next paragraph in Charen's column is a whole-hearted endorsement of
UN Women in their effort to end violence against women across the world.
But nay, the only response I could hear from the direction of Ms. Moaning Charen concerning the issue of violence against women was, to quote Gilbert and Sullivan, the sound of "the loving breeze."
Okay, okay, ... but surely there's some outrage over the fact that the journalists in the Reuters story here preferred beating a woman instead of giving up a small percentage of their salaries in order to retire with a decent pension?
Sighing softly to the river comes the loving breeze...
Nopes! According to Moaning Charen the only fact to sigh about here is the government. The mob is blameless. Hell, they're justifiably angry and blowing off steam. That bitch Spanopoulou had it coming! Nah, nobody to specifically blame in that story except the government with its stupid taxes and stupid spending and stupid stuff that government does!
When governments cannot pay their current employees because they’ve gone broke paying pensions to previous employees (among other obligations), you don’t get a “fiscal cliff” or even a bad recession, you get the unraveling of civilization.
WOW! Harsh! Yeah, so we definitely need to preserve pensions for employees and vote out politicians who tend to dive into Social Security, like
Florida Governor Rick Scott and
Congressman Paul "What election?" Ryan and
every warm turd of a Congressperson who voted for it.. Right Charen? I mean, that's the gist of your argument here, right?
Setting nature all a-quiver, rustling through the trees.
Um, no. Despite Moaning Charen's horror story about the consequences of not paying owed pensions and Social Security, she still believes that massive budget cuts should be on the table.
But, but... teh "Mad Max" and teh "unraveling of civilization" and stuff! If just cutting benefits provokes angry mobs then surely the answer lies in tax increases on those making more than 250 large a year. Right?
Haha! Wrong again! Watch as Moaning Charen once again unleashes her dogs of war.
The Republicans are attempting to divert the nation — not from the “fiscal cliff” but from something much worse. If government debt is not controlled by spending cuts (tax increases on the rich make scarcely a dent), the U.S. is headed for drastic economic decline.
Okay, let's ignore the fact that Moaning Charen is now endorsing spending cuts after just quoting a pretty powerful story earlier about how badly spending cuts would affect the peace of the country. Ms. Max has just said that the tax increases WON'T help reduce the deficit. She said it parenthetically, hoping perhaps that we wouldn't examine that assertion too closely, but she said it all the same.
Okay, is this the same GOP line that says tax increases will cut soooo much money out of the economy that they will trigger another Great Recession? But at the same time tax increases will bring sooooo little money into the budget that it'll make "scarcely a dent" in the deficit?
You can't have it both ways Ms. Charen. Either tax increases bring a lot of money out of the economy and make a substantial impact on the deficit OR tax increases take very little money out of the economy and have negligible negative impact on national growth.
But look, I can understand why you're peeved. I'd be peeved too if I'd just had to spend five days with a bunch of grumpy conservatives chewing mediocre steak dinners and playing silent games of shuffleboard on the lido deck of the National Review Post-Election cruise. That must of been hell.
Still, if you want to start winning elections Ms Charen, you're going to have to get off your odd, historically inaccurate, logically impossible, God-you-just-don't-learn-do-you soapbox of "only tax cuts can save us from teh 'Mad Max' dystopia." Give the facts a good, hard look. We Democrats are the only ones trying to save the world. The GOP, well, it looks like you guys are just here for the gasoline.