You don’t have to read too far between the lines of a weekend news story to figure out that the GOP leadership in D.C. sees its freshman class of Tea Partiers is a collection of dumbasses. Kathleen Hennessey and Lisa Mascaro of the Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend about a new, very revealing development in the debt ceiling uproar. You might even say it’s kind of hilarious. It seems that once it became clear that the GOP would have to compromise to some degree on the debt ceiling, House Speaker John Boehner enlisted the help of Tea Party fave Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republicans’ supposed “budget expert” (“expertise” being apparently rated by how much your proposals horrify the general public, as per Ryan’s Medicare vouchers plan). Ryan’s assignment was to explain to the Tea Partiers that, well, you see, this debt ceiling thing is for real, and not raising it would be really, really bad for America. Apparently not content with the complexity of Ryan’s explanation, the doofs still balked, until … here’s the beauty part … Ryan explained it to them in terms of Star Wars. And then they finally got it. God help us.
How ignorant are these people? One quick answer is that Reps. Virginia “healthcare reform = terrorism” Foxx, and Louie “illegal immigrant terrorist babies” Gohmert are among the sharper members of the club. Seriously, how can you be in friggin’ Congress and not know such basic stuff as “defaulting on the national debt would be catastrophic.” How do these half-wits — who have to have issues reduced to the simplicity of a science-fiction movie before they can understand what’s going on — get elected in the first place? Actually, it’s easy: just use a combination of sucking up to rich contributors, keeping constituents as ill-educated as the candidate, and repeating a few bumpersticker slogans in the campaign speeches — that should get the job done. Hey, it works for Cherryville’s Patrick McHenry and the new Queen of Stupid, Rep. Renee Ellmers from the Triangle.
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2011.
A huge percentage of the population can be easily lead by just changing the words used to describe something or someone.
Example#1:
Prisoners of war have rights under the Geneva Convention. Criminals have rights under the Constitution. BUT Enemy combatants have none!
Example#2:
If you call very rich people “the job creators” instead of “rich people”, even though they don’t actually employ anyone but the maid, then poor people will defend their right to pay as little in tax on their income and investments as possible.
Why would not raising the debt ceiling be bad? What is good about more debt? The financial crisis was caused by too much debt.
Moody’s and S&P are threatening downgrades not because of the possibility of maintaining the current debt ceiling but because there is no plan to deal with the current debt. S&P specifically cited “very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness.”
So explain to me how you treat an alcoholic by handing him another bottle of scotch.
@Joe It’s funny that the blog is about being so stupid that analogies have to be used to explain the problem, and you use a nonsense analogy to try to refute it. A better analogy would be: Why keep giving a wounded man a transfusion?
Yes, we have too much debt. Fighting two wars while shoveling money to the rich will do that. The answer is simple: Retax the wealthy and bring the troops home. Just ending Bush’s Paris Hilton giveaways would take care of most of the problem.
And yes, defaulting would destroy our credit ratings and cause a worldwide economic crisis. But your stupid/insane overlords are too dumb to see it or too evil to care.
Matt, You can’t even use the word “default” correctly so it’s obvious there’s no reason at all to pay you further mind.