Sunday, March 24, 2013

"Hypocrisy" In The Clouded Eyes Of Conservative Beholders

This post in Paul Krugman's New York Times blog, about the attacks on a liberal blogger by the conservative chattering class because he had the temerity to buy private property, reminded me of the kerfluffle among the members of that class a few years back about Al Gore's Tennessee mansion--which, by the way, he was in the process of reducing its carbon footprint.  Both are built on the same incorrect assumption:  that environmentalism, in the case of Gore, or redistribution, in the case of Matthew Ygelsias, requires everyone, including the advocates, to practice extreme poverty.

Of course, the question follows:  is it incorrect because of conservative ignorance, or incorrect because of conservative deceit?  I'll leave that up to you.  I'll merely point out that, by most common measures of economic success (including, but not limited to, the stock market), liberal policies generate more real growth than conservative ones produce.

Gore and Ygelsias aren't hypocrites.  If anything, they're reaping the fruits of the policies in which they believe.  To paraphrase Newt Gingrich, liberal ideas work, and I can help it if conservative policies fail.

And I'll be damned if I'm going to let conservatives play mind-games with me or the American people.

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