Conservatism is supposed to be about character. It is supposed to be about competence and merit and ability to execute. It is supposed to be about the good of the people and helping lift all together, not the class warfare crap we despise the left for engaging in. It is supposed to be about knowing economics, not just having a vested interest and a bet. It is supposed to be about patriotism and putting the country first. It is supposed to be about being superior to press pressure and mad crowd passions. It is supposed to be responsible, grown up, and sane.
Look around you. Any of that strongly in evidence over this financial crisis?
When a weak hurricane headed for the Louisiana coast on the eve of the Republican convention, men dropped everything to show their concern for an issue of common welfare. It was obvious they feared being blindsided by apparent indifference to another Katrina scale disaster, but they did what they should do in such circumstances. You see any of that over the Wall Street mess?
I've seen maybe 3 government officials, from top to bottom, show real spin-free technocrat sense in this entire crisis. Everyone else is just playing it for angles and could care less what they burn to the ground in the process. These people aren't fit to run a hotdog stand, and they want to run my country. You bet I'm mad!
Jason, if you or others do NOT do some work at countering the democrat poo-flinging at Bush with some historical facts - the poo flingers who put the foxes like Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, Tim Howard, Jamie Gorelick in charge of the hen house will be running the White House, the Congress and the Senate, plus every other agency of government.
Fact is, this is the result of cronyism and individual greed on possibly the largest scale in our lifetime, and a whole lot of it attributable to the likes of people who pursed Scooter Libby and now Sarah Palin like a pack of braying hyenas while hiding behind piles of megamillions looted and raped from our treasury while the GOP was either bought off or otherwise acquiesced in accepting this cronyism.
OK, on much of this I agree with you. But I think tonight a lot of people here lost some serious coin and they're concerned it could be worse tomorrow. It's not theoretical when it's the money you were going to use to send a child to college or take that early retirement package. And people here feel that our leaders set them up with bad banking policy. Policy that's functioned so badly it's like a thief stealing money out of our pockets. I am angry about this - and yeah - part of that is a desire to kick butt and take names.
More tomorrow.
Er, thats because anybody who is supposed to be working on this isn’t likely to be announcing what they are doing to all and sundry.
There can be no great national conversation on stuff like this. Spin-free technocrat sense is best used quietly, when we are talking about market interventions, interest rates, etc.