The very terrible, no good, horrible....thing the other guy suggests!

I understand the desire to say/think everything your ideological opponents suggest is wrong. But that is simply not the case. This piece by Steven Pearlstein is a nice refutation of that sort of mentality, especially with reference to the republican tendency to classify anything democratic idea/initiative or government activity as "Job-Killing":

What's so curious is that it's hard to find almost any Republican concern about employment homicide during 2008, when George W. Bush was president and the economy was shedding 4.4 million jobs. Given the lag with which economic policy works, the biggest net job loss that could credibly be assigned to Obama during his two years in office would be less than a million.

I know that to point out republican hypocrisy is nothing new or revolutionary, but the sheer scope of the demagoguery is awe inspiring.

Ironically, the first order of legislative business in the new Republican House will be to repeal last year's health-care reform law. Since the immediate impact of the measure will be to allow 30 million more Americans the chance to buy drugs and medical services from doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, it's hard to imagine a more effective way to reduce employment in the one sector that is actually adding jobs.

The other GOP priority is to cut $100 billion this year from the government's domestic spending, which translates into the loss of close to a million jobs for government workers and contractors. Apparently, in the stylized way that Republicans count things, those positions don't count as real jobs.

What's particularly noteworthy about this fixation with "job killing" is that it stands in such contrast to the complete lack of concern about policies that kill people rather than jobs.

Repealing health-care reform, for instance, would inevitably lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths each year because of an inability to get medical care.

Although lack of effective regulation led directly to the deaths of 78 coal miners last year in West Virginia, Republicans continue to insist that any reform of mine safety laws is bad for miners' employment.

It is a matter of accumulated wisdom in conservative circles that government is useless in the most benign sense, or an outright evil, liberty stealing and freedom crushing monstrosity on the far end (especially when Democrats are in control). Sometimes the government is the lesser of two evils, or the buffer which keeps business from grinding us all up in its greed induced frenzy.

I wish the media would do a better job of point out this sort of red baiting, intellectual dishonesty when it happens. Not only point it out, but shaming the individuals who continually spew this sort of nonsense.

That is asking a lot, but a boy can hope?

-Cheers