The Nation: The Inherent Self-Destruction of Government-vs.-the People Ideology

[marmar]

It is sad that in the wake of this weekend's horrific violence, we begin an absurd debate over whether Sarah Palin pointed her rhetorical crosshairs at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as gun sights or "surveyors symbols," as her spokesperson now suggests. It doesn't matter.

Jared Loughner's alleged "assassination" attempt should force far broader questions than the semantics of Palin's hate speech; the right has always preferred that sort of narrowed public discourse about its divisiveness. Rather, the bloodbath in Arizona should give us pause about the enemy-in-our-midst perspective from which the right has both politicked and governed for decades. It's apparent that Loughner is a troubled young man. But it's also clear that the right's ongoing antigovernment crusade became destructive long before he fired into a crowd with his legally purchased semiautomatic hand gun.

"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem," Ronald Reagan famously declared in his first inaugural address. He sought to explain the crippling economic downturn, to which many have compared our recent recession, but he spoke more broadly than economics. He warned that "we the people" must fight government's "intervention and intrusion in our lives" at all points. "It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed."

The great communicator was careful to define his government-vs.-the people perspective as a bizarre sort of unity. He scoffed that "we hear much of special interests" before declaring that we must rally across sectional and racial lines to defeat our own representative government. But the unmistakable implication was that government had been hijacked by those evil "special interests," something which others called civil rights. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blog/157598/inherent-self-destruction-government-vs-people-ideology

[The Magistrate]

1. An Excellent Piece, Sir

One thing worth pointing out. Reagan also pioneered the strange change in menaing assigned to the phrase 'special interests'. In my younger days this phrase always meant some particular business cabal, the oil industry, or power companies, bankers, and the like. Reagan and the fools who followed him turned it into meaning instead many millions of ordinary citizens. And under this cover, it is clear that 'special interests' in the original and proper meaning of the term have taken their place openly and impudently at the pinnacle of government.

[coalition_unwilling]

2. Very a propos. I well remember how welfare advocacy suddenly

became a 'special interest' starting in the Reagan era, to be followed by teachers' unions and so on.

"Openly and impudently" -- quite a turn of phrase that describes much of the past 30 years. To which I might add, "bald-faced effrontery." :)