The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Paul Krugman Remains Free To Drop An Upper-Decker

Posted on | September 17, 2011 | 18 Comments

by Smitty

People may object to the use of a scatalogical term to describe a Krugman excretion, but I submit that the level of perversion on display by the gentleman supports the label. Allow me to object to Krugman’s choice of historical time frame, scope of analysis, boring guilt play, and refusal to understand federalism.

Time Frame

Back in 1980, just as America was making its political turn to the right, Milton Friedman lent his voice to the change with the famous TV series “Free to Choose.”

America was born on the Right, and pulled Leftward by a bunch of slack-jawed Progressives with pointy little beards and berets. These little knobs do well within coffee shops, where they can quote Marx to each other at length, by their anti-market fantasizing is a big economic wrecking ball.
Pretending that U.S. history began with Reagan is a disservice to that reader of yours, Krugman.

Scope

People who can’t afford essential medical care often fail to get it, and always have — and sometimes they die as a result.

No, Krugman, they always die. The most medical care can ever do is postpone the inevitable. Medical care can extend life, but cannot provide immortality. Yet the appeals to the fear of death at which life insurance purveyors and Progressive policy peddlers are so adept seek to get the audience to connect the dots such that all we have to do is give you all our liberty and cash and you will keep the reaper away.

Guilt Play
Beyond the appeal to fear of death, there is your appeal to guilt: if I do play along with your upper-decker ploy, I am a Bad Person.

Think, in particular, of the children.

Why, yes: yes, I do! I’m thinking about the existentially proven disaster of your policy ideas in Britain and Canada. Italy and Japan. Having just become a father, and noting that, according to Wikipedia, you have not, might I suggest you consider adoption? A little skin in the game might help you to understand that dooming future generations to debt slavery is as ill-liberal as policy gets.

Understanding Federalism

Now, however, compassion is out of fashion — indeed, lack of compassion has become a matter of principle, at least among the G.O.P.’s base.

And what this means is that modern conservatism is actually a deeply radical movement, one that is hostile to the kind of society we’ve had for the past three generations — that is, a society that, acting through the government, tries to mitigate some of the “common hazards of life” through such programs as Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.

The Constitution was a delegation of multi-state-level tasks to a federal government. One can argue for an FDA in the context of managing large-scale testing of a new medication. But this notion that Washington DC should, much less, can fret the complexities of health care for everyone is really is as ugly as a floater in the toilet tank, Krugman.

Also ugly: dismissing a legitimate Constitutional concern as lack of compassion. If your argument was not built on ignoring the whole of American history, constraining the scope of the question of medical greatment, and piling cheap guilt plays on your audience, then maybe your point about compassion might seem sincere.

But no, it’s just more finger pointing, presumably to paper over the emptiness of your argument.

Summary
Paul Krugman has achieved a special level of sovereignty: he is the King of the Upper-Decker. Let conservatives hail him and his crap crown as such.

via Memeorandum

Update: linked At The Point Of A Gun.

Category: New York Times

Comments

18 Responses to “Paul Krugman Remains Free To Drop An Upper-Decker”

  1. Anonymous
    September 17th, 2011 @ 1:12 pm

    Spot on, Smitty.

    The comments under Krugman’s article are just as foul.

  2. Mike
    September 17th, 2011 @ 1:17 pm

    More craptastic fodder from Krugman…who’da thunk it?

  3. Steve Burri
    September 17th, 2011 @ 2:44 pm

    Smitty,

    You just don’t understand that some men have evolved beyond the foolish constitution of regular folks and it is only they that can overcome the Adamic fallen nature in the rest of us. Unless we submit our lives and fortunes to them “Hell is coming to breakfast.” Or something.

  4. ThePaganTemple
    September 17th, 2011 @ 2:44 pm

    When are you guys going to ever learn that Paul Krugman makes John Nash look like the walking definition of sanity and common sense? Haven’t any of you ever seen this guy in an interview? Just look at him and watch him carefully. Look at his eyes, watch his expressions. The man is clearly unhinged. If you can’t see that, I don’t know what to tell you. If I was a Christian, I might even go so far as to say he’s possessed.

  5. Joe
    September 17th, 2011 @ 4:48 pm

    The Pagan Temple, you crack me up sometimes.  Spot on. 

  6. Anonymous
    September 17th, 2011 @ 4:52 pm

    “dooming future generations to debt slavery”

    This is why they are simply the 1861 Copperheads relabeled.

  7. Matt Lewis
    September 17th, 2011 @ 5:26 pm

    Ah, progressivism.  Where compassion means spending other people’s money.

  8. JeffS
    September 17th, 2011 @ 5:32 pm

    The only reason Krugman remains free is because being a leftie is not a legal reason to clap people into a mental institution.

  9. Adjoran
    September 17th, 2011 @ 6:41 pm

    Hey, remember the good ol’ days when they kept all the Krugman-Dowd-Rich-Brooks crap behind their “pay wall”?

    Good times, good times . . .

  10. Anonymous
    September 17th, 2011 @ 7:47 pm

    But it should be.

  11. Anonymous
    September 17th, 2011 @ 7:48 pm

    I think allowing Krugman to adopt is an extraordinarily bad idea.

  12. ThePaganTemple
    September 17th, 2011 @ 9:06 pm

    Allow him to adopt? Hell every time I see that guy on some show I get the impression he’s scared to death somebody is going to expose the time he raped and mutilated a twelve year old boy. Of course that could just be because he’s naturally the nervous sort of guy, worried that the studio lights might accidentally melt his human skin disguise.

  13. JeffS
    September 17th, 2011 @ 9:15 pm

    Yes.  It should be.

  14. The Wondering Jew
    September 17th, 2011 @ 11:40 pm

    “If your argument was not built on ignoring the whole of American
    history, constraining the scope of the question of medical greatment,
    and piling cheap guilt plays on your audience, then maybe your point
    about compassion might seem sincere.”

    Smitty, you’ve been on fire as of late. . . .

  15. Bob Belvedere
    September 18th, 2011 @ 12:27 am

    What K_Bob said.

  16. Bob Belvedere
    September 18th, 2011 @ 12:28 am

    As long as the Temple don’t crack-up.

  17. Bob Belvedere
    September 18th, 2011 @ 12:28 am

    There’s a reason the Bolshes shut down all the mental institutions in the late ’70’s.

  18. Bob Belvedere
    September 18th, 2011 @ 12:30 am

    I think Itty Bitty Smitty is ghosting for him, especially considering all of the scatological comparisons that litter his postings lately.