It’s not often that I feel the need to chide Insty, but he asks a silly question of a Michael Barone article. Barone states:
When public policies have produced disastrous results and when alternative policies have resulted in immediate, seemingly miraculous improvement, why would anyone want to go back to the earlier policies? Is there any reason to suppose that this time will be different?
…
We know where such policies led before. Is there any reason this time will be different?
Whereupon Insty states, correctly:
The explanation is that Democrats don’t care about the downsides to these policies, because they feel like the upsides offset them.
But he then falls into the standard trap of the intelligent person by asking:
So what are the upsides that they see?
Silly rabbit. The upside to any policy proposal or implementation by the Left (Marxists) is that it makes them feel virtuous. (The only other significant upside is if said policy increases the Left’s grip on power.) In the face of those two features, downsides pale into insignificance.
I will now quote again the late-and-very-much-missed Acidman:
“I could tolerate leftists if they had any coherent ideas for a better way to do things. But they don’t. They cling stubbornly to failed brain-fart dreams that have been attempted over and over again with disastrous results, but they never learn. When better ideas come along, they simply screech and holler at them, then fling feces like the monkeys they are.”
The reason they do that is because better ideas underline their (many) failures. And that gives them Teh Sadz.
Public policy my pimply white ass. You know what the “upside” of any public policy is? What I call, “The rule of 8”. Whereas, everything this rotten assed gov’t proposes, when drawn to it’s natural conclusion, ends up costing at least 8 times the original cost estimate. ALWAYS.
Now that may not seem like an upside to you, because you are used to the idea that if you fail, you pay. That is, if you do not succeed, it costs you dearly, in your favorite legal tenders.
But when the gov’t fails it, wait for it, it is never penalized. How do you penalize the tyrannical warden? When public policy is handled by elected representatives something is forever lost in the translation with the result always being the loss being borne by the public and the elected representatives or their successors skipping off into the sunset, care free and heroic. fuk em ded
Wait for Stagflation-II – coming soon if Congress actually passes and implements that most glorious of all stimuluses that is sitting on The Hill now – spending $1.9-TRILLION to make all of the components of the Dem Party whole, and then some.
$1.9-TRILLION that the government does not have.
But, Sandy tells us that it’s all OK as MMT tells us it’s good.
Yeah, Rob is sorely missed. I still occasionally visit his page to read through some of his old posts. Most of them are as timeless as they are priceless.
Dang. Acidman. June 2006 I think it was. Wow at how long ago that was, and what all has happened since he passed. Can you imagine how much fun it would have been to read his blog during the Trump years?
Yep. I remember sitting at my desk reading the post telling us what had happened. It was a gut punch.
‘But when the gov’t fails it, wait for it, it is never penalized.’
It’s actually far worse than that.
NO FAILURE of any type is EVER penalized. Regardless of intent. I direct your attention to the shenanigans around last November the 6th !
There are never ANY consequences. Period.
No one on the left EVER goes to jail, loses their job, gets fined, is publicly ridiculed, NOTHING, zip, zilch, nada ! This is why they ARE NO LONGER AFRAID to do ANYTHING they want, WHENEVER they want, to WHOMEVER they want !
That must change ( how it must change I leave to the reader’s imagination ) if the path we have been on since January is to change.
We’re not going to vote, or tweet, or post or beseech or beg our way out of this.
You can vote your way into Socialism, but it takes gunfire to leave.
Acidman was my first foray into reading blogs. 2nd was the Nation of Riflemen. Every blogger that I read that has passed away was like a punch to the gut. Rob was the first to go. I learned a lot from him. I gained a whole lot of respect for southerners after reading him. Straight shooters, everyone of them.
I can’t think of boiled peanuts without thinking of him. The dude could write.
Hard to believe I’ve been reading blogs for 17 years. Now I have to go find his blog and read some posts in remembrance.
Insty tosses a bunch of stuff out there that he doesn’t necessarily agree with. He seems to me to be getting increasing militant.