The Ministry of Truth

According to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal,

What was determinative is that the two political parties view the American people very differently. The Republican Party has become the party of individualism, believing that free enterprise, market economies, and individual choices give people the best chance of a good life; that if ordinary Americans are left alone to make their own decisions, they will generally be good decisions, so they -- not the government -- should have the power to make them.

See Wally Conger's take on this nonsense.

See also Scott Bieser's comment on Conger's blog.

My own opinion is all but spelled out here. The one thing I'll add is that the GOP likes to use libertarian rhetoric to advance anti-libertarian goals. Anyone who thinks the Republican Party stands for individualism, liberty, or principle, needs to either have his head examined or have it removed from his arse.

I do, however, agree with the editorial writer's take on the loyal opposition:

Conversely, the Democratic Party is the party of centralization, believing that a wise and benevolent, best-and-brightest, urban blue-county government can make better choices than those of rural, red-county Americans. This is not a new belief; it is the legacy of the 1930s (the New Deal) and the '60s (the Great Society). It was fully reflected in John Kerry's campaign: Taxes must rise and government must grow; trade must be regulated and limited; the 1935 Social Security system is perfect and nothing about it may be changed.

He may be right about perception -- perhaps people vote Republican because they see it as the alternative to an ever-growing government -- but the problem is that the perception is false. George Dubya has spent more than any president since Johnson. At this point, he's probably spent more than anyone since FDR. His so-called tax cuts aren't real tax cuts: they're tax deferments. Unless you actually cut spending, apparent tax cuts are just smoke and mirrors. (And I'm not even mentioning the most insidious, hidden tax of all: monetary inflation.) Dubya loves central regulation. Look what he's done to airports. Look what he wants to do to the power grid.

We're supposed to sit still for talk of "trusting people" with the USA PATRIOT Act still on the books?!

The GOP government doesn't trust its citizens at all -- and yet asks us to trust them with practically everything. No thank you.

The neoconservatives are not for small government! They're just for corporate welfare and foreign warfare rather than social programs and class warfare -- and actually, they seem to like their own set of social programs, too!

As I wrote in a letter last year,

You say that the sorry state of the world is from lack of education, and I agree, but it's economic education that I believe is most fundamentally lacking. People misunderstand the basic rules of cause and effect, and politicians promote that misunderstanding, either out of their own ignorance, or out of self-interest. Rail at the Republicans for trying to direct tax dollars into the accounts of large corporations, and I won't disagree with you. If "capitalism" is government intervention for the benefit of capitalists, then I am as anti-capitalist as any socialist is. But the socialists will take us all to hell. It's their programs that caused the problems in the first place -- and if you don't understand why I say so, then I beg you to learn some more economics. We're on a steep decline and the Democrats and Republicans are arguing about whether to steer left or right. Neither seems to want to actually put on the brakes, and what we need is full reverse.