Political Irony

Daniel Ellsberg points out that thanks to the Patriot Act and similar laws, all of Nixon’s crimes would be perfectly legal today.

Watergate would be legal, Ellsberg himself would probably be rotting in jail, and who knows when (or even if) the Vietnam war would have ended. We have not learned our lessons from history, and as the saying goes are doomed to repeat it — with now three seemingly unending wars, rampant abuses of power at the highest levels, and whistleblowers like Bradley Manning locked up and facing possible execution.

© Ed Stein

The economy continues to lurch along, gaining a little bit of steam, then falling back again. Unemployment stays stubbornly around 9%, homes are still being foreclosed at a ferocious rate, and the housing industry remains in a deep funk, Meanwhile, official Washington is consumed with the debate over the debt ceiling. Will someone please explain to me how cutting long-term spending (something I agree we need to do sometime soon) is going to jump-start the economy so that it can create the jobs needed to pull us out of this trough? Several of the conservative friends I’ve asked this question insist that solving the deficit now will give businesses the market certainty they need to start hiring again. Even if they’re right, his seems like awfully week tea, given the depth of the problem. These are the same folks who recite the mantra that cutting taxes always produces economic growth and reduce the deficit (See effect of Bush tax cuts). They are, of course, also the people who claim that the stimulus did nothing at all (See auto sales, GM. See also, state budget cuts after the stimulus money was exhausted). If anyone can tell me when an austerity budget ever pulled us out of a recession, I’d be willing to listen. I can’t think of one. I do know that the rush to cut the deficit during the Great Depression helped lengthen it by a decade.

What annoys me the most in all of this is that Democrats lack the courage to lay out an ambitious plan for jobs and economic growth based on the principles that they know work. Instead, they negotiate with deficit hawks and tax-cut absolutists whose ideas have been repudiated again and again by history, but who cling to the same tired theories no matter the evidence. As a result, Congress and the president play Russian roulette with the debt ceiling at a time when we should be focused on creating jobs, and the Great Recession lingers on and on.

[Brilliant satire, reprinted from Bullseye Rooster by Fred Wickham]

The Ryan Senior Voucher Plan has been pretty well misrepresented by the liberal-left-loonies-on-lorazepam battalions. Here’s what it isn’t: it isn’t pretty, but pretty doesn’t win sailboat races. Here’s what it is: it’s pretty sensible. You give us cash, we give you vouchers for up to 50% of that cash to spend on any health-related program. Period. Imagine that, half your cash outflow returned to you in the form of $50 Equivalency Notes — backed by our Gold and Silver Melt. (It’s so good we named a sandwich after it). Equivalency Notes carry the RSVP Seal of Dignity. Compare that to the Seal of Dependency the democrats would offer you if they would even guarantee ObamaCare with a seal of anything.

RSVP vouchers are legal and medical tender good for thousands of pharmaceuticals. You can use them to pay for procedures, surgeries, even radiation (unless you are already receiving radiation through the Squabble-Talk cell-phone plan available from Market Incentive Senior Services).

Human achievement can only be measured in terms of the real wealth substitutes society offers its less fortunate. Visit a convenient Thumbs Down to Suffering counter at any WalMart. Simply trade in any amount of cash for RSVP vouchers and you will receive a Gold and Silver Melt sandwich. Okay, because you’re dying to know, it’s thick sourdough Texas Toast with a crunchy egg-white ‘n cashew batter, waffle-grilled with a resplendent golden-brown dignity glaze.

Of course, if health-care was just a tasty sandwich, we could leave you in the hands of the beltway socialist left. But as you age, you become disoriented. Easy answers literally enter your head through extra hairy ear canals. If they are remodulated in a Synapto-Cortical Labyrinth ™ from Pfizer’s new RIP division, these messages become clear: Yearn…yearn…yearn…urine…urine…urine…urine…you’re in…you’re in…you’re ingoo…you’re ingood…you’re in good hands with RSVP.

Deep down, we believe American Seniors are a worthwhile project for Free Market Capitalism. We wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if it weren’t so. Communists have whittled down so much that is good about the aging public that it is sometimes difficult to look at a person over 65. With the proper care, we can make that 70, or 75, maybe even 80.

You told us your wanted a plan from the Republicans. Well, here it is.

Sincerely,

Paul Ryan

© Jeff Danziger

No, I absolutely am not making this up. Rick Santorum, in his speech announcing he was running for the Republican nomination for president, declared that the D-Day Troops fought for freedom from Medicare.

Almost 60,000 average Americans had the courage to go out and charge those beaches on Normandy, to drop out of airplanes who knows where, and take on the battle for freedom. … Those Americans risked everything so they could make that decision on their health care plan.

I feel so much better now that I know that Santorum will fight so that you too will have the freedom to be screwed over by health insurance companies — it’s the American way!

An interesting article in the Washington Post talks about the increase in misquotes of the founding fathers, and blames it on the internet, where incorrect information is repeated so much that even politicians think it is true. Here are a few examples:

“Thomas Jefferson wrote that government is best that governs least.” – Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) in his victory speech on the night he was elected. Jefferson never said that, Henry David Thoreau did.

“Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” – Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) claiming to quote George Washington, even though Washington never said those words.

“As Jefferson said, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” – Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC). At least Foxx has the excuse that this quote has been misattributed to Jefferson since 1838. And a virtually identical statement was attributed to Jefferson by Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-IN).

“President George Washington said that the right to keep and bear arms is ‘the most effectual means of preserving peace'”. – Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). But Washington actually said “To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”

“The democracy will cease to exist, when you take away from those who are willing to work to give to those who would not.” – Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), claiming to be quoting Jefferson. Except those words were never said by Jefferson, and in fact were first uttered in 1986.

While not a quote, Sarah Palin also got into the act by claiming that Paul Revere warned the British that they couldn’t take away the guns of the colonists.

And then there was Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) giving a speech where she claimed that the battles of Lexington and Concord took place in New Hampshire.

Getting it wrong is not exclusive to Republicans. Even Obama gets it wrong. At least twice he has quoted the Declaration of Independence, saying “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that each of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But the document actually says “that they are endowed by their Creator“.

While misquoting the founders seems to be increasing, it has a very long tradition. During George Washington’s second term as president, his political enemies circulated letters that expressed admiration for England’s King George III (an enemy) claiming they were from Washington. However, the letters had been faked.

UPDATE:

© Stuart Carlson

A Florida couple bought a house in 2009 and paid for it with cash, so they were a bit surprised when Bank of America tried to foreclose on their house, even though they had no mortgage at all. Unfortunately, they had to hire a lawyer to straighten out the problem with Bank of America, and a court ordered the bank to reimburse them. But despite repeated attempts to recover the $2,534 in attorney’s fees, the bank never paid.

So the couple foreclosed on the bank for unpaid debt, and showed up at the bank with sheriff’s deputies and proceeded to do what banks normally do when they foreclose on a homeowner — seized cash from the teller’s drawers, furniture, computers, and other property. Within an hour, however, the bank somehow managed to come up with a check for $5,772.88 to cover the original attorney’s fees plus the cost of the foreclosure.

That is ironic enough, but then the bank had to go just that extra step into corporate unreality — they made an excuse for not paying the attorney’s fees, saying: “We apologize to Mr. Nyerges that there was a delay in receiving the funds. The original request went to an outside attorney who is no longer in business.” Can you even imagine if the tables were turned and a homeowner who was being foreclosed on by a bank made some excuse as to why they didn’t pay? Would the bank even care? Hardly.

It is even worse than that, because Mr. Nyerges points out that he didn’t just send his request to their attorney — he went directly to the bank, multiple times, talked to branch managers, and called multiple people before he took the drastic step of instigating a foreclosure. In other words, the bank is lying.

Which is one of my pet peeves about large corporations — the imbalance in power between people and the corporations they have to deal with. Corporations routinely treat people in ways that corporations themselves would not accept from people.

Ironically, this kind of behavior backfires on the banks. A recent study at the University of Chicago showed that homeowners with negative equity (a mortgage that is larger than the value of their home) will generally keep their current mortgage rather than strategically defaulting. However, they found a correlation between people who have a dim view of their bank and their willingness to default. So by treating their customers poorly, banks are increasing chances that their customers will treat them poorly.

What goes around, comes around.