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Nothing To Fear But Fearlessness Itself?
theodp writes "In a post last August, Robert X. Cringely voiced fears that Goldman Sachs and others were not so much evil as 'clueless about the implications of their work,' leaving it up to the government to fix any mess they leave behind. 'But what if government runs out of options,' worried Cringely. 'Our economic policy doesn't imagine it, nor does our foreign policy, because superpowers don't acknowledge weakness.' And now his fears are echoed in a WSJ opinion piece by Peggy Noonan titled 'We're Governed by Callous Children.' She writes, 'We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists — they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice.' With apologies to FDR, do we have nothing to fear but fearlessness itself?"
Who is John Galt?
A one-dimensional character in a lousy book representing a fatally flawed philosophy dreamt up by a sociopathic meth addict and hypocrite?
...to really see it in action. The state legislature approval rating was approaching single digits last I heard.
As a Californian, I saw that's that's the government we deserve. We did it ourselves. We decided through an initiative to require a 2/3 vote to pass ANY budget, then in 1978 with Prop 13, we required property tax increases to need a 2/3 vote, we passed inititives to require any tax increase to require a 2/3 vote, but no such requirement to lower taxes. We pass initiatives that lock budgetary allocations, thereby removing the ability of the legislature to make sensible budgets. We are children. We want everything, but never want to pay for anything. We have a radicalized GOP that opposes any revenue increases, but then only wants budget cuts to tax collection enforcement and the poor, but not for their groups. Oh did I mention that the GOP only has 35% of seats in legislature? It's the tyranny of the minority.
God we need a constitutional convention.
Eliminate the 2/3 rules!
Eliminate the initiatives!
Grow the fuck up California!