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September 17, 2008 at 20:45:41     Permalink Cal Thomas nails it on what's wrong with Republicans Diary Entry by Ed Martin (about the author)

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Without even realizing that he's done it, Cal Thomas has perfectly described what's wrong with the conservative, Republican ideology that has brought about the financial collapse of the United States.

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In a September 17 article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Cal Thomas asks a question about Sarah Palin concerning how she would confront John McCain as president: "How hard would she push her own beliefs?"-

The question should be: How hard would she push her own knowledge about what to do? That's a silly question, though, because it presumes some knowledge on her part, a thing in which she has demonstrated she is woefully lacking.

Thomas' beliefs on how to run a government are based entirely on his, and Palin's, beliefs on how to run a government, which, as we can see, are repudiated by the financial collapse of the United States. This collapse can best be described as the unregulated financial institutions gambling with other people's money, and losing. The conservative Republicans, including John McCain, have pushed for the unregulated, Libertarian style free market. And now that the whole thing has failed, McCain wants to start an investigation to find someone, anyone other than himself, to blame for it.

Now we're seeing the results of that. The evidence of the failure of free market capitalism is right before our eyes. McCain has gotten exactly what he wanted, free market capitalism, with results that confound and contradict every belief he has ever had. McCain had better wish that he doesn't get the investigation he says he wants (he may say he wants something else, tomorrow) into this mess. An investigation into this would reveal that at the bottom of the cause for it is: John McCain, himself.

The evidence is that the conservative Republican, belief/ideology driven way of running the country has failed. It has failed on all fronts, on the social, economic, commercial, foreign policy, military and financial fronts. The failure of the largest financial institutions is absolute proof of that. It cannot be denied, though it will be and guess who will be blamed for the failure by the Republicans? You got it, you and me, the victims. The Republicans and the Libertarians will say that we were fools for giving our money to unethical, grasping, greedy financial institutions to do with as they please. They'll do this without pointing out the fact that under Republican, Libertarian economic and financial principles, there are no other kinds of financial institutions but the unethical, grasping and greedy, due to their being unregulated.

The people who have caused this catastrophic collapse of financial institutions will not ever admit that dealing with an unregulated financial market is exactly the same as going to the casinos in Las Vegas. It's a crap-shoot. It's the biggest gamble you can make, staking your life's savings on the hoped for integrity and intelligence of guys like the ones who ran Enron into the ground with their scams. The guys who ran AIG, Lehman Brothers, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Merrill Lynch, et al, are the same kind of guys. They gloried in the freedom of the free market, the freedom to do pretty much as they pleased with our money. They lost it all, but it doesn't hurt them at all to do that, after all, it's not their money.

Under free market principles, they are unregulated, therefore they cannot be held responsible for the damage they have done. Why would they? Being unregulated, there's no law against what they have done. Well, accept for the ethical law which an unregulated free market doesn't allow. Imposing ethical behavior is anathema to the free market. That would be the dreaded regulation.

The free market principles go pretty much like this: You pays your money and you takes your chances, without pointing out the fact that you have no chances at all with these principles. There are none. You just pay in your money and wait for the collapse that we're seeing going on right now.

Cal Thomas' question about how hard Palin would push her beliefs perfectly describes what has brought about this financial collapse, without him even realizing it. You can't run a government or a financial institution with beliefs. It requires a minimal degree of knowledge, not belief. Belief presupposes and replaces the need for knowledge and Sarah Palin runs strictly on belief. The very limited amount of knowledge she could have acquired from her very limited experience is dismissed when it contradicts her beliefs. She's going to go with her beliefs every time, she will chose them over everything else, just like Cal Thomas, John McCain and every other conservative Republican.

The evidence for the failure of their beliefs is in the news every day.

 

Ed Martin is an unindicted curmudgeon. He is not a Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, deist, atheist, or a member of any -ism.

 

 
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