November 25, 2001
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:Historical hyperbole
Krugman weighs in with a comparison of the current environment in the U.S. to that between World War I and II. Seth Sandrosky draws on the same time period - but compares us to Nazi Germany. According to Maureen Dowd, The Economist has compared the "Ashcroft Era" to England in the time of Cromwell. And, of course, Barbara Kingsolver has weighed in with her latest screed looking at the past through Roosevelt-coloured glasses while staring at the present with....no glasses at all. And she obviously can't see a thing without 'em.
All of these analogies are hopelessly strained, and serve only to make the phenomena criticized by the observer appear to be more alarming. These are straw men to bash at when you can't think of something useful or sufficiently hysterical to say. Even if the administration were to demand greater sacrifices of individual liberties, and even if there use of their new powers were to extend to more U.S. citizens than non-U.S. belligerents, we still live in a time when individual rights are more honored in jurisprudence than ever before. Next November, we get to vote a whole bunch of congresspeople out if we don't like it.
Sandrosky's argument is particularly ridiculous, claiming that this is the final gasp of fascism before we finally evolve into socialists. Funny that he should compare us to Nazi Germany then, as the Nazis were by-the-book socialists.
Krugman also steps in his own paper trail:
So it tells you something when Congress votes $15 billion in aid and loan guarantees for airline companies but not a penny for laid-off airline workers. It tells you even more when the House passes a "stimulus" bill that contains almost nothing for the unemployed but includes $25 billion in retroactive corporate tax cuts — that is, pure lump-sum transfers to corporations, most of them highly profitable.But Krugman has already come out in favor of one-time tax rebates, which are also lump-sum transfers. And, surely, subsidizing the airline was intended to keep some people working. There's plenty to criticize about these policies, but Krugman can't seem to do it without getting his logical legs crossed. Of course, he is, as always, capable of divining intentions as well:
As Jonathan Chait points out, there used to be some question about the true motives of people like Dick Armey and Tom DeLay. Did they really believe in free markets, or did they just want to take from the poor and give to the rich? Now we know.
These folks want to make this administration look evil one way or the other. Given the legitimate material provided by Ashcroft et. al. these last weeks, its funny how their biases have prevented them from doing a decent job of it.
Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at November 25, 2001 03:24 PM | Technorati inbound links