Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Is it the apocalypse?

Now that Social Security "reform" (read: destruction) is less likely to be foisted on America, Paul Krugman has freed himself up to discuss other important issues in his NYT column. Today, Krugman writes about the threat to democracy that is posed by "dangerous extremists," by which he means right-wing Christians like Tom DeLay and Randall Terry.

Governmental interference in the Terri Schiavo case, laws that allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control, the attempts in Congress to eliminate the filibuster and so pack the bench with right-wing judges—all are part of the religious extremists' agenda, and moderates have got to defend our nation against these assaults.

And did you hear about this? Krugman writes, "There has been little national exposure for a Miami Herald report that Jeb Bush sent state law enforcement agents to seize Terri Schiavo from the hospice - a plan called off when local police said they would enforce the judge's order that she remain there." (!!! Jeb in 2008? I'll pass.) Must be the liberally biased media that squelched that story. The fundie crowd who shrieked about the sanctity of Terri Schiavo's life apparently is selective about their support of life—the judge in the Schiavo case, George Greer, needs armed bodyguards to protect his life.

4 comments:

Orange said...
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thenutfantastic said...

I get overwhelmed when I remember that we still have 4 more years to go. *sigh*

Anonymous said...

I can see your politics and mine do not agree ;-) (I'm not a Bush supporter, just a raging small-government fan.)

I do think pharmacists should be allowed to refuse to dispense birth control (and that Social Security shouldn't exist)...but then, in the system I envision (in which government is limited solely to protecting individual rights), there wouldn't be a prescription system anyway. Don't get me started.

Anonymous said...

How would a 40-hour workweek have been possible without capitalism? Without it, we'd all still be breaking our backs dawn to dusk on the farm.

A 40-hour work week is nobody's right -- and paying a low wage or offering poor working conditions in a free market is NOT "running roughshod over individual rights," because workers are then free to seek other, greener pastures. They're also free to talk to the press, which would be only too happy to blare the news and instigate a boycott. The beauty of which is that no one's individual rights are violated.

I think just such "smashing" of corporations by the government is patently wrong.