When a child throws a mindless tantrum in the super market, do you try to calm them? Do you give them that cereal that is 60% sugar and laced with chemicals? Do you look nervously around, pulling a weak smile for all of the horrified by-standers, and trying to seem like a reasonable person, embarrassed and slightly mystified by this sudden display of outrageous behavior?
Or, do you do the correct thing and walk away (just around the corner of the aisle)? Do you wait until it is clear that the display of hysterics has garnered nothing? Do you watch, patiently, as the sobs slow, and finally stop, reappearing when the tantrum is over?
Democrats are being very bad parents.
The only way that this ignorant, vicious, mean spirited tantrum by the Tea Party is going to be stopped, once and for all, is to walk away.
How long can they hold these ill-informed opinions when the results of their policies gain nothing that they want? Remember when that stupid woman carried a sign at the first DC Tea Party gathering, demand that "The government keep its hand off my Medicare"? How would she react if the cuts to Medicare that the Republicans demand went into effect?
No one is devastated by a Credit Downgrade more than the Wall Street players. That's why they cracked the whip on the House Republicans last week, demanding passage of the debt ceiling raise. Why are we, once again, allowing Wall Street, and the amoral sociopaths that run it, to determine how this economy is structured.
No one is hurt more by Social Security cuts than the most reliable, and most Republican, voters in the country. When their hero, Dick Cheney, said, "Deficits don't matter" they got weak in the knees. When some wet behind the ears, overly ambitious, under achiever campaigned on lies, and fear, they went gaga. They seem oblivious to the carnage their demands will leave on the social field, and on themselves.
I am forced to say, let them have what they demand. Let them see, and experience the full effect of their tantrum. A tantrum, as are all tantrums, based on a total misunderstanding of the social contract. Based on blind adherence to a set of irrational principles that history, and current economic status prove beyond any doubt, is both stupid and very harmful to everyone.
Some times a good parent just has to let the tantrum play out, to demonstrate that tantrums get you nothing, and may in fact come with unintended consequences. Next time you should not take them to the store. But be sure and tell them why.
