a couple of highlights from today's nytimes op-ed page.
krugman demonstrates again why you shouldn't send an economist to do a writer's job: '“I have a dream,” declared Martin Luther King, in a speech that has lost none of its power to inspire.' if you know that a sentence (by which i mean krugman's whole sentence, not king's per se) has already been written a thousand times, or is has been a cliche among assistant principals for decades, you should give it a miss in your column and resolve to write your own material instead of plucking it from the cloud of socially-approved yapyap. and you know what? it's really an excellent refutation of itself: a nice demonstration that king is now just a cliche whose words we recite like automata.
egan argues that the tea party was a fraud because they never really wanted to 'govern.' cf. proudhon:
To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.
only a 'daft, grandfatherly skinflint' like ron paul wouldn't want all of that for everyone.
