Lemonade

So this knucklehead is driving around with his family and they happen upon some kids selling lemonade. Well, actually they were not selling it. It was a very hot day so they were giving it away. So what does Mr. Knucklehead do? He gives them a lecture on free-market ideology.

That really set me off, as my regular readers can imagine.

"No!" I exclaimed from the back seat. "That's not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They're giving away their parents' things -- the lemonade, cups, candy. It's not theirs to give."

Yes. He has regular readers. Ones who have bowel movements on a routine schedule. They read him here. God in heaven I so hated providing that link.

No wonder America is getting it all wrong when it comes to government, and taxes, and policy. We all act as if the "lemonade" or benefits we're "giving away" is free.

He says.

I call a straw-man argument. Nobody thinks this stuff is free. We all know the costs. This information is everywhere.

The cost of war. Over $1 trillion dollars and growing daily, and so far we've gotten absolutely nothing out of it except a few thousand dead and ruined soldiers.

Chump change, though. Remember the bank bailouts? You have to google that, because your average journalist has the attention span of a heroin-addicted housefly so there's no headlining that today. How does $4 trillion sound to you? Good? Free? Not free?

But of course Mr. Knucklehead doesn't mention those things. No.

And so the voters demand more -- more subsidies for mortgages, more bailouts, more loan modification and longer periods of unemployment benefits.

The real problem with America and its profligate government is voters. Especially those who have homes. Or those who have lost their jobs. They're not worth a few billion dollars. Well, a little more than that. The unemployment benefits extension recently stymied by Republicans would have cost about $33.9 billion. That's a lot of cash, though a tiny number compared to what we spend on war and banks. It's cash that would get immediately spent and circulated throughout our economy though, unlike the hundreds of billions we spend on ordinance that ends up buried in the sands of Araby or bailout cash that winds up in some rich Republican's Swiss bank account. Whatever.

Anyways, Savage is an idiot. There's no arguing with him, I am sure. Ideology like his is impermeable. Fossilized. Never changing. Not reality based.

And because he is that deranged, he lectures little girls on a hot summer day, trying to persuade them out of their joyful kindness.

What an asshole.