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After 50 years of market ascendancy

What?

I guess he didn't notice the incredible growth over the years of how much of the GDP the government takes, the strangelhold of regulation, and how many liberties we have lost.

Like I said from the start, one of the most awkward and major features playing throughout this fall, has been how the government seems to be obsessed with proving itself: "Americans, step aside, your gov't is here, in charge, and in control --- the experts."

As were the Clinton years, when and where "the left" obsessed about proving its economic theories ... right on up until the price of energy proved to be much more a "throttle" on the economy than socialist academia's mantra: interest rates. There were constant self-gratuities from the "higher-ups," with every C.P.I. and P.P.I. listing of economic data, but which reports always stated, "Discounting the cost of food and energy."

I always like that part, was anybody else listening?

After 50 years of market ascendancy, government may be poised to reclaim its role as an integral and admirable part of American life.

I'm afraid there's more than a little grain of truth here. Thanks to Wall Street Greedheads (aided and abetted by corrupt Clintonista government) the economy is going to crash and crash hard over the next decade. And the "Free Market" will take the blame.

When the Baby Boomers's stocks and real estate evaporate and they see that they have NOTHING to retire on, they'll be BEGGING Uncle Sam to take care of them in their old age. And since there are so darn many of them, the policitians will be falling over each other to give them everything they want.

Gee whiz, this guy is printed in the NY Times -- isn't he supposed to be smart or something?

The pathetic liberals are really grasping, trying to interpret support for the military, a conservative cause, with support for the bureaucracy. These mfers are talking to themselves in an echo chamber.

I have a suspicion that we will see another grand sweep of liberals from congress in 2002, and they do not see the train a-coming. The arrogance of liberals in these circumstances and their misreading of the national mood reminds me of the revulsion to hillary klinton previous to 94. It's time to teach these punks another lesson.

The article is so slight and insubstantial -- the rest of it doesn't add much to the snippet you've given -- that it doesn't look like Donohue is going to be leading any kind of a pro-government revolution anytime soon. These things move in cycles. There may be a small resurgence of faith in government, but once people remember what bureaucracy is really like, they'll soon lose it.

It's more likely that we recognize an equilibrium. There is no great support for major cuts or for major expansion of government right now. Based on the last 20 years, a liberal might call this a victory. Doing so means ignoring the much more exaggerated claims of Great Society liberalism. You can call almost any development in politics a victory if you really want to and if you define your terms in order to do so, but such a victory is very hollow indeed.

So much of the liberal attitude towards government is based on the Great Depression, when something like a quarter of our population were truly dependent on government for sustenance. We won't see anything like that any time soon. A more independent and self-reliant population can't help but regard the government with a good deal of skepticism -- though it might not think of it as the enemy.